The Ohio State Buckeyes reportedly have a new offensive coordinator.
Following a frustrating season in which Ohio State dropped a third straight game to the eventual national champion Michigan Wolverines before scoring just three points in a Cotton Bowl loss to the Missouri Tigers, head coach Ryan Day vowed to give up offensive playcalling duties and bolster the offensive staff.
Thursday night, ESPN’s Pete Thamel broke the news that Ohio State will be hiring former college and NFL head coach Bill O’Brien as offensive coordinator.
Sources: Ohio State is set to hire longtime NFL head coach Bill O’Brien as the school’s new offensive coordinator. O’Brien served last season as the Patriots’ offensive coordinator in 2023 and has been the head coach at the Texans and in the Big Ten at Penn State. pic.twitter.com/19e2iXv6oe
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) January 19, 2024
As Thamel notes, O’Brien most recently worked for the New England Patriots as Bill Belichick’s offensive coordinator, his second stint with the team.
After working as a position coach at Brown, Georgia Tech, and Maryland in the 1990s and early 2000s, O’Brien was hired as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Duke and served that role in the 2005 and 2006 seasons. He was then hired by Belichick and the Patriots in 2007, first as an offensive assistant, then a receivers coach, quarterback coach, and by 2011, offensive coordinator.
O’Brien went on to replace Joe Paterno as head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions in 2012 where he won Big Ten Coach of the Year for leading the team to an 8-4 record despite heavy NCAA sanctions.
After two seasons at Penn State, O’Brien was named head coach of the Houston Texans, a position he held until midway through the 2020 season when the team fired him. O’Brien went 52-48 in Houston and took the team to the playoffs four times.
When Steve Sarkisian left the Alabama Crimson Tide offensive coordinator position to become the head coach of the Texas Longhorns in 2021, Alabama hired O’Brien to replace him. The Crimson Tide made it to the College Football Playoff National Championship where they lost to the Georgia Bulldogs.
Quarterback Bryce Young won the Heisman Trophy, but O’Brien faced criticism in his time at Alabama for the team not being quite as good as it should have been, leading him back to the Patriots after two years in Tuscaloosa.
