With the announcement this morning, we now know exactly who the next offensive coordinator of Ohio State lacrosse will be: Dylan Sheridan, founding head coach of Cleveland State University's lacrosse program.
And wow, it's a huge win for Coach Myers to bring Sheridan to Columbus. First, some background, then what you can expect from Sheridan as a recruiter and as an offensive mind.
Coach Sheridan is first and foremost an Ohioan, having played in three straight state title games, winning the 2001 Ohio state championship with the Western Reserve Academy.
He is one of those rare coaches that never played varsity lacrosse in college. Sheridan was a star in MCLA, however, racking up over 300 points during his career. And, as a result of his efforts, Sheridan enjoyed a 3-year stint in the MLL with the Denver Outlaws.
Sheridan also jumped immediately into the coaching ranks, coaching at Pfeiffer University for two years, followed by a year at Lebanon Valley College. From DIII, Sheridan immediately jumped to being a volunteer assistant at Denver under Coach Tierney. Starting as an unpaid faceoff coach, Sheridan eventually worked his way up to defensive coordinator for the Pioneers, running the defense and working as the recruiting coordinator from 2012 to 2014 in Denver.
Prior to the Pios title run in 2015, Sheridan moved to Princeton, taking the same position he had occupied during his time at Denver. Immediately after the end of that season, Sheridan was named the inaugural head coach of Cleveland State, returning home to found Ohio's second Division 1 lacrosse team.
The Vikes started play in the 2017 season, and Sheridan did an absolutely fantastic job building that program, guiding the team to an 8-7 record in 2019, despite playing some of the toughest teams in the country.
Cleveland State was a program significantly outperforming expectations, and Ohio State managed to swipe the head coach. It's a huge win, and will only bring great things to the program as offensive coordinator. What will his underlying philosophy be?
That's some serious guessing, but as always, YouTube provides some good insight.
As the new head coach of a fledgling program, Coach Sheridan faced what every new program has to deal with: who is going to play for me?
Johns Hopkins, Maryland, North Carolina, and Duke have lines of players 15 deep at each position wanting to play for them with outrageous skills and ridiculous athleticism. Cleveland State, St. Bonaventure, and other new programs do not have the history or resources to attract that attention.
So they need sound schemes and collective organization to make things happen. Fortunately, Sheridan does a great job at getting both down pat. That can be seen in how much better the CSU O was in 2019 vs 2018. The Vikings scored 11.47 goals per game this year, up from 8.64 in 2018.
The Vikes also had a Man Up conversion percentage of 35%, up from 2018's 25.5%. CSU also had assists in 113 of their 172 goals in 2019, good for a 65% assist rate. The Buckeyes managed to score 11.75 goals per game in 2019, but had an assist rate of barely 50%, had a Man Up conversion percentage of just 25%, had 1.5 fewer shots per game than CSU, and had a much lower spread of contributing players than Cleveland State.
The Vikings had 25 players score at least 1 goal. OSU had 13. 5 Vikings had 7 goals, which would have tied them for 5th on the Buckeyes in 2019. And, CSU had 6 players with at least 11 goals. OSU had 5. With the massive recruiting advantage OSU has, those numbers are pretty bleak.
CSU wasn't perfect, but they certainly had a team approach. The Buckeyes should be very, very glad they brought Coach Sheridan down.
How did CSU get all those fancy numbers? Well, it helped that they had a fantastic primary dodger. The team had a sophomore who put up 35 assists dodging all over the field. But really, it all comes down to intent.
The Buckeyes spent 2019 dodging to push to X, or super slow dodges from X to either side of the goal. They had dalliances with wing dodges early on, but the offense really wasn't as progressive as it seemed early.
That comes down to the complete lack of cohesion on offense. There were often two man dodges, but they rarely were complemented by any sort of off-ball movement, or generous spacing. And OSU still doesn't have the dodging threats to make a stationary offense work like UVA did to win a title.
The O just refused to play to the strengths of the players, instead trying the same things over and over with identically poor results. I am hopeful, and pretty confident, that not only will the offense be overhauled, but we will also see dodging with actual purpose.
The talent in Columbus has never been more plentiful. Coach Sheridan couldn't have come along at a better time. And I am extremely excited for fall practices to start up!
