News surfaced on Thursday via multiple outlets that former college and NFL head coach Bill O’Brien was set to be announced as the Ohio State football program’s new offensive coordinator. It didn’t take long for that news to become official on Friday.
OSU announced the hiring of O’Brien as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in a statement just a day after ESPN’s Pete Thamel broke the story. The announcement came from Ryan Day through an Ohio State spokesman.
“I am extremely pleased to be able to add Bill O’Brien to our coaching staff,” Day said in the statement. “He brings with him a wealth of knowledge – and a tremendous amount of success – at both the NFL and collegiate levels. He is an excellent and experienced offensive coach who has run NFL and Power 5 programs and developed some truly elite players throughout his career. He’ll be an excellent teacher and recruiter for us, and he absolutely strengthens our staff.”
Also of note is the news that Brian Hartline will still be the co-offensive coordinator, and that Corey Dennis will move to a analyst position on the staff. That is in contrast to several reports that the son-in-law of Urban Meyer would part ways with the program.
O’Brien brings a wealth of experience with him. He was as of most recently the New England Patriots offensive coordinator, but was a former college head coach with Penn State, and had a stint in the NFL with the Houston Texans as their head coach as well. He is a 34-year coaching veteran, and even had a stop at Alabama under Nick Saban as the Crimson Tide’s offensive coordinator.
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Now, the Massachusetts native will head back to the Big Ten to try and allow Ohio State’s head coach to have more of a CEO approach and get the Buckeyes back to the top of the conference and beyond.
As any further news and developments occur in the offseason with Day’s coaching staff we’ll be sure to have the details for you.
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