Ohio State Buckeyes To Hire Former NFL Head Coach As Next Offensive Coordinator
If you were wondering if Ryan Day was going to play it safe with his next coordinator hire, you can officially stop wondering. In a move that feels equal parts “genius laboratory experiment” and “fantasy football nightmare,” Ohio State is reportedly bringing in former Atlanta Falcons head coach and Pittsburgh Steelers Offensive Coordinator Arthur Smith to run the offense.
According to reports from ESPN and NFL Network, Smith is heading back to the college ranks for the first time since 2010. It’s a bold, possibly polarizing pivot for an Ohio State program that has been searching for an identity since Brian Hartline packed his bags for the head coaching gig at USF.
Why Ohio State is Betting on the “Ground and Pound”
Watching the Ohio State offense lately has felt a bit like watching a Ferrari stuck in school zone traffic. It looks pretty, it sounds expensive, but it hasn’t been moving the way it should. Day knows this. And by hiring Smith, Day is signaling a massive shift in philosophy.
Smith made his name in Tennessee by turning Derrick Henry into a human wrecking ball. His offenses are physical. They are nasty. They want to run the football down your throat until you politely ask them to stop. For a segment of the Ohio State fanbase that still wakes up in a cold sweat remembering the lack of toughness in recent Michigan games, this hire sounds like poetry.
Day wants to run the ball. He wants to control the clock. He wants an offense that doesn’t just score points, but breaks wills. Smith, in theory, brings that NFL-caliber toughness back to Columbus.
The Fantasy Football Trauma Factor
Now, I can hear the collective groan from a specific section of the Ohio State faithful—specifically, anyone who drafted Kyle Pitts or Bijan Robinson in fantasy football over the last few years.
Smith has a reputation. He’s the guy who seemingly refused to give the ball to his superstars in Atlanta, preferring to dial up plays for his third-string tight end just to keep defenses guessing. There is a legitimate fear here: Ohio State has arguably the best wide receiver room in the country. If Smith comes in and starts running jet sweeps with the backup fullback while Jeremiah Smith is waving his arms in the end zone, the message boards are going to melt down before halftime of Week 1.
But here’s the counterpoint: College football isn’t the NFL. The talent gap Smith will have at Ohio State compared to his opponents is astronomical. He won’t need to outsmart himself. He just needs to let the athletes be athletes.
Can An NFL Mind Survive College Recruiting?
Arthur Smith hasn’t coached in college since 2010. That was a different lifetime. Back then, “NIL” was a typo, and the Transfer Portal sounded like a sci-fi movie prop. Arthur Smith is walking into a buzzsaw of recruiting battles, donor dinners, and teenage egos. Can a guy who has spent the last decade and a half dealing with grown men in the NFL adapt to the chaos of modern college football?
Day seems to think so. And frankly, Day didn’t have much of a choice. With Brian Daboll chasing other NFL gigs and the college coordinator market looking thin, Day had to go big or go home. He went to the NFL.
What This Means For the Quarterback Room
The biggest winner in all of this might be Julian Sayin. The Ohio State quarterback situation is primed for a guy who can manage a game and hit the deep shot off play-action. That is Arthur Smith’s bread and butter.
If Smith can install the play-action heavy scheme he used with Ryan Tannehill during those golden years in Tennessee, Sayin could put up monstrous numbers. The passing windows are massive when linebackers are terrified of the run. But if the run game stalls? That’s when things get ugly. We saw it in Pittsburgh. When the ground game didn’t work, the offense looked like it was moving through molasses.
The Verdict On the New Era In Columbus
This isn’t a safe hire. It’s a swing for the fences. Day is under immense pressure to deliver a national title, and he’s banking his future on a guy who just got fired from the Steelers after leading a bottom-tier offense.
But that’s the beauty of college football. Redemption arcs happen fast. If Arthur Smith gets Ohio State bullying teams in the trenches again, nobody will care about his NFL record. They’ll just care about the scoreboard.
