Are you all ready to take up the mantle again? The haters and losers, of which there are many, have been saying the Lunatic Fringe was slumbering during the 2025 season, growing fat off of the spoils of our complete cultural victory over Ryan Day and his scheming eunuch advisors the year prior. They’re saying we don’t have it in us anymore. I plan to prove them wrong.
I am, obviously, disgusted with the performance the team put on in the Cotton Bowl against Miami and with the complete blown opportunity by Day and the team this season. I am still angry, but there’s nothing to be done about it. I will be pissed off no matter who wins the national title of the four remaining programs and I’ll be watching and seething, but I also feel the need to turn my eyes forward to the offseason and to address what the program needs to improve upon.
In the wake of any failure like that, there are always failures pointed at a million things in the heat of the battle and everyone gets their hackles up about nearly everything when the spotlight shines as bright as it does on the Buckeyes at all times. I want to separate out which concerns are above the line (things that need to be addressed imminently) and which of the points raised (past or present) are below the line and can be figured out internally with the current roster.
Let’s get into it.
ABOVE THE LINE: The offensive coaching staff
If you’ve spent any time at all on this website, you have heard me rail against Ryan Day’s hiring practices. He’s hit on a few coordinators here and there and they haven’t all been disasters, but when his nuts aren’t in a vice from fanbase pressure, he defaults to internal promotions for inexperienced or underqualified familiar faces.
That was obviously the case this season. None of them were quite as disastrous as the most famous example, Parker Fleming, but they were bad nonetheless.
Brian Hartline, a first time playcaller, was handed the reins as OC because of his recruiting success.
Tyler Bowen, who had one year of prior FBS offensive line coaching experience in 2017 for a Maryland team that ranked 117th in sack rate allowed, was named the OL coach.
Keenan Bailey, a former intern who had spent two years as tight ends coach for mediocre units, was elevated to co-OC.
Billy Fesler was elevated from analyst to quarterbacks coach and charged with Julian Sayin’s development, despite his only prior experience being working at fucking Akron for two years as a quarterbacks coach, culminating in a season where the team ranked no. 129 in yards per pass attempt.
Carlos Locklyn was the only assistant on the offense who really had the proven chops for the job he was holding this year before he got it. Ohio State cannot continue to rely on familiar faces from the meeting rooms before those coaches have proven their mettle outside of Columbus. You cannot be learning on the job at Ohio State. It doesn’t matter how large the army of analysts behind you is, you have to have proven you can do it yourself.
Ohio State needs to overhaul its offensive coaching staff. Ryan Day can no longer be the playcaller ever again. An outside offensive coordinator with playcalling experience needs to be brought in. Billy Fesler needs to be fired and replaced with a real coach. Tyler Bowen needs to get shitcanned after blowing one of the most experienced Ohio State offensive lines in recent memory. Keenan Bailey cannot be allowed to have a serious role in offensive gameplanning after his post-Michigan chest beating about 14 personnel.
Unfortunately, the effort that Day made to hire one new face for the offense as part of the overhaul I’m calling for is deeply concerning.
Cortez Hankton, the LSU passing game coordinator (if that title doesn’t give you enough pause already, hang on) and wide receivers coach spent 11 years as an assistant in the SEC and there is just one single player he is responsible for recruiting, developing, and sending off to the NFL – Georgia’s George Pickens. In four years at Georgia and four years at LSU, he has one guy to show for it that he actually got, built, and sent off on his own.
You’ll see credit given to him for Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas Jr., but he didn’t recruit those guys. Both of them were already contributing for the Tigers before he joined the program. And given some of the headcase/diva stuff we’ve seen from BTJ and Pickens in the NFL, coupled with Kyren Lacy’s troubles, and the rumors about the improprieties that Hankton got up to alongside Kayson Boutte and a recruiting staffer, I can’t say I feel particularly good about the likelihood of his room having a good culture.
Also, unless Day is planning on firing somebody, making an internal promotion for one of the coaches to playcaller, or calling plays again himself, he is already at the cap for countable on-field assistants. That designation now only matters for recruiting purposes, as the ten on-field countable assistants are the same ones allowed to recruit off-campus. That means that if he does not fire somebody currently on staff, Ohio State’s offensive coordinator will not be allowed to recruit. That’s fine by me, but I’d prefer firing someone to get an OC and hiring an extra recruiter, personally.
We’ll wait and see on that one and I’ve recommended several names on the boards that would make sense, but Day needs a real playcaller and he can’t keep reverting back to familiar hires whenever successful assistants leave.
ABOVE THE LINE: The offensive line
Improvements need to be made not just on offensive line coaching, but on personnel. The coaching should come first, but the room as it stands today is not good enough. This unit allowed ten sacks over Ohio State’s final two games.
Left guard Luke Montgomery, a rising senior, and center Carson Hinzman, a redshirt senior, are both going to be back and both are good enough.
Right tackle Phillip Daniels allowed six pressures and five quarterback hurries, taking a sack and a penalty, over just Ohio State’s final two games. He was a spot starter and bench player for Minnesota who was never Ohio State-caliber and I was not enthused by his performance.
The right guard position was, obviously, the most glaring disaster. Tegra Tshabola was obviously the starter for the majority of the season and has another year of eligibility, but would anyone actually want him back at this point? He was truly horrendous throughout the year and has enough experience to tell us that he won’t improve. His backup, Gabe Van Sickle, was beat like a rented mule in his first start against Miami and then benched in favor of Josh Padilla.
You could convince me that one of Padilla or Van Sickle could be the answer at right guard after another offseason with a different coach. It would be much more convincing to move rising redshirt junior Austin Siereveld from left tackle to right guard, his natural position and where he will play in the NFL, and let Padilla and Van Sickle mature for another year before assuming roles from one of those three interior players.
That would allow Ian Moore, who will be a redshirt sophomore next season, to slot in at left tackle, where I think it’s clear he will be a stud. You can leave Daniels at right tackle if you want, but I would go to the portal and recruit over him for a more proven option.
I think it’s likelier that they keep Siereveld, Montgomery, and Hinzman where they’re at and have a Padilla-GVS battle at right guard with a Daniels-Moore battle at right tackle, but Moore-Montgomery-Hinzman-Siereveld-Portal Veteran X is a stronger line.
BELOW THE LINE: Julian Sayin and the offensive skill positions
Let’s just start here: Julian Sayin was not good enough in Ohio State’s final couple games. He was too easily sped up by pressure from the (admittedly excellent) Miami and Indiana fronts, post-snap rotations had him in a spin cycle, and he was not pulling the trigger on open reads. I am not absolving Sayin from criticism, at all. He has to get better.
However, his late season struggles are, to me, downstream of the coaching staff’s failures. His quarterbacks coach is a 30-year old moron who had done a bad job at Akron and then got handed this job. His OC was always one ATV ride away from a DUI. He had to spend much of the season going as slow as possible and working off of silent counts, inexplicably, while having a bunch of mediocre tight ends as his targets. His offensive line shit their pants every time the opposing defensive front ran a simple stunt.
Sayin was not sharp in those games and he does not have much running in his game like Will Howard or Justin Fields, nor the arm talent of past starters like CJ Stroud or Dwayne Haskins. When you are a quarterback whose entire pitch is being super accurate and being a point guard who quickly makes correct decisions and gets to the ball out to superior skill talent, you can’t afford to have games where you’re seeing ghosts. I get all of that.
He’s also a redshirt freshman with an idiotic coaching staff around him that couldn’t protect him or adjust. They didn’t build gameplans to suit their talent or create rhythm throws often, they just barreled ahead with whatever they felt like calling.
Elsewhere in the skill positions, I have concerns about the other rooms and I want them to continue upgrading talent, but it’s not a top-line concern for me.
The wide receiver room will lose Carnell Tate, Bryson Rodgers and Damarion Witten are transferring out, Brandon Inniss is serviceable but not exciting, Mylan Graham clearly seems to be a bust at this point, and Quincy Porter couldn’t stay healthy all year. So you’re left with Jeremiah Smith, a JAG slot guy, and a whole bunch of question marks. I would really like to see them land a transfer wide receiver because of injury concerns with Porter and Chris Henry Jr., but it doesn’t seem do or die.
The running back room is young and lacks the top-end starpower of the receivers, but Bo Jackson and Isaiah West looked good enough this year and should be expected to improve next season, with three other blue-chip freshmen behind them. Again, I’d like to see them go get a transfer back to be in the starting rotation, but if they don’t, I think they’ll be fine.
The tight end room is mostly fine. Will Kacmarek graduated and Jelani Thurman is transferring, but Max Klare and Bennett Christian are a pretty solid top two. If they took a portal guy to upgrade on Christian, I wouldn’t complain, but I wouldn’t put it in the top 10 needs on this roster either.
You can see some cracks and some reasons for concern, but these are not crises and one or two transfers, coaching staff improvements, and internal development should fix things here.
BELOW THE LINE: Offensive pace
ABOVE THE LINE: “Controlled scrimmage” philosophy
These two concerns are kissing cousins to me, but they are distinct.
I do not have a problem with Ohio State playing slow and limiting reps during the season for its starters. That paid off in a major way in the 2024 title run and the Buckeyes were even noticeably healthier than their most of their competition this season. Limiting possession, limiting reps – that has worked. It worked better in 2024 when they had a team full of veterans and you could argue that that prior experience was critical to the strategy working, but I don’t think trying to stay healthier throughout the year is a bad thing.
What is a bad thing is what appears to be a fetishistic obsession with keeping the offense as vanilla as possible and trying nothing except what is needed to beat greatly inferior opponents by a couple scores during the regular season. The “controlled scrimmage” approach of just doing paint-by-numbers offense and not exposing the team to new wrinkles with any kind of frequency, not trying to push tempo or attack aggressively, and opting for overly conservative field goal attempts in lieu of repping have-to-have-it third and fourth down situations is a mistake.
Ohio State needs to take all of its opponents seriously and understand the cumulative experience that is gained for young players and coaches by being aggressive all year round, not just in December. Indiana has benefitted from it greatly and you can be aggressive and decisive even with the backups in when they’re blue-chip players.
Also, I don’t think this complaint is strictly related, but I have to put it somewhere: the decision to go with a silent count back-to-back games in neutral sites on indoor fields because they “echo” was fucking ridiculous. Man up and treat your team like they’re adults. Run your fucking offense.
ABOVE THE LINE: Special teams
No one is going to be issuing any apologies to Parker Fleming, but it’s clear at this point that the larger issue with Ohio State’s repeated special teams fuckups is that Ryan Day just doesn’t care about the third phase of the game. He got enough pressure about Fleming to finally fire him, but he clearly doesn’t take practice for special teams situations seriously and doesn’t chase good talent on his special teams units.
Jayden Fielding and Joe McGuire being the starting kicker and punter for a championship-hopeful team is a fucking joke.
Fielding ranked no. 60 out of 68 P4 kickers in PFF field goal grading (8 below him). I don’t think I need to reel off any of his many, many critical missed field goals in his time in scarlet and gray for all of you. McGuire ranked no. 44 out of 63 qualified P4 punters in the same metric; he wasn’t in the top 40 of hangtime or yards per attempt either.
Day brought in competition for both of them – a giant Australian punter to push McGuire and a seemingly competent Ball State kicker for Fielding – and then didn’t play either of them for a single meaningful rep or really have any kind of on-field competition.
He just doesn’t care about it. He views special teams as a burden that shouldn’t be apart of football instead of a critical element of the game that can flip the field, win close games, and break deadlocks. It has been going on for years and he is the problem. It should not take significant effort to go out and pay a good punter and a good kicker and fucking practice.
There should never be a procedural penalty on special teams ever again, like there was in the fourth quarter against Miami when an illegal formation wiped out a 53-yard punt from McGuire that would have pinned Miami at their own 11 and instead set up a touchdown drive on the re-kick and took the air out of Ohio State’s sails.
BELOW THE LINE: Mick Marotti and the S&C staff
I am less concerned about S&C than I have been for almost a decade and I laid out why here.
ABOVE THE LINE: Mark Pantoni, talent identification, and portal approach
Yes, Ohio State has an expensive roster, that’s nice.
What it does not have is a general manager, in Mark Pantoni, who is using the resources gifted to him to the best of his ability and spending them on the right transfer portal targets. The Buckeyes took 11 portal additions last year. Only two of them became regular starters and only four contributed in any meaningful way at all.
Despite coming into this season with very real concerns about depth and experience on the defensive line, the Buckeyes did nothing to upgrade there other than taking a mediocre rotational end from North Carolina who barely did anything in Beau Atkinson. When you get smacked around by two deep, experienced fronts like Indiana and Miami with veteran players, you have to take notice of that.
They spent a shit ton of money on an offensive line solution in Ethan Onianwa who ended up as a third string player without a single meaningful snap on the year and couldn’t get in the mix at either of the two positions on the right side of the line where the Buckeyes struggled.
They need to be aggressive in upgrading where they don’t have proven starters, add playable depth at positions that rotate, not worry about hurting feelings, and splash on sure things instead of spreading money around on speculative additions if they can’t evaluate for them.
I have a list of speculative portal targets I would like to see Ohio State in contact with here.
ABOVE THE LINE: Tim Walton
I continue to be on an island on this one, but let’s talk about it.
Ohio State spent all night against Miami playing 10-15 yards off of the ball against a quarterback who can’t throw the ball more than ten yards downfield because of a cooked elbow; given Walton’s co-DC title and his ownership of the corners room, I have to assume he was part of that. Against Indiana, the team’s top four corners were targeted 12 times for a 75-percent completion rate, and 159 yards (13.3 yards per attempt) despite one of the top two receivers for the Hoosiers being out nearly the entire game. They got cooked by a white, three-star sophomore backup in Charlie Becker.
He’s been at Ohio State for four seasons now and his only draft picks are fifth rounders Jordan Hancock and Denzel Burke. He was gifted a room, in his first season in 2022, with two young returning starters and five top 200 players in their first or second seasons, and has done very little with it. Davison Igbinosun will probably be drafted somewhere in round three or later this year, but three late picks in four seasons is not really good enough. Not when Ohio State had ten guys drafted in the ten classes since Urban Meyer was hired before Walton got here, seven of them in the first round.
He hasn’t been able to close on top 150 Ohio talent like Trey McNutt (Oregon), Dorian Brew (Oregon), Victor Singleton (Texas A&M), Elbert Hill (USC), or Jakob Weatherspoon (North Carolina) in the last two classes. He lost big-time talent, like five-star Na’eem Offord (Oregon) and top 200 recruits Jontae Gilbert (Georgia), Dijon Johnson (Florida), Kayin Lee (Auburn), and Blake Woodby (Auburn) to flips. He’s brought in just three top 300 players in the last two classes combined.
Of the players he has landed himself as recruits, who has he really developed? Jermaine Mathews is pretty solid. Calvin Simpson-Hunt and Bryce West transferred out as top 100 guys, Aaron Scott has shown nothing, Miles Lockhart has been a ghost, and Devin Sanchez underwhelmed, even for a true freshman. So we’re talking about middling production with inherited starters, one solid recruitment and development story, and one solid transfer. That’s it?
Is that Ohio State level? I really don’t think so. You have to be an elite recruiter or an elite developer and there’s nothing I’ve seen to suggest that Walton is either. Couple that with his apparent involvement in a bad defensive gameplan against a limited Miami passing game and I have to say I am just absolutely not impressed at all. He’s had enough time. The instagram spoken word clips are cute, but go get a real football coach.