The “L” in the Cotton Bowl does not bother me as much as the lack of execution and progress, especially on the offensive side of the ball. It’s not just the OL or the QB, our entire offense looked pathetic and reminded me of the ***-show that Warinner/Beck ran against Clemson. Day's era is squarely at a crossroads. I don’t think we get back on track in 2024 without a new offensive coordinator.
My argument is that you can win a championship with a lousy head coach and elite coordinators, but you can’t win big with an elite head coach and subpar coordinators. Here are just a few examples that highlight why coordinators are even more important than the head coach:
- A coach of Urban Meyer's stature could not win with Ed Warinner and Tim Beck as OCs. Hypothetically, if you pair Urban Meyer with Warinner/Beck or Alex Grinch for a decade, OSU still won’t win anything meaningful.
- Coaches like Gene Chizik and Ed Orgeron—both got fired after winning a championship—were lousy head coaches with poor game management skills. But they did have elite coordinators in Gus Malzahn (Auburn) and Joe Brady (LSU) to run their offenses.
- I know it’s hard to separate Michigan's success from the cheating scandal. But it’s reasonable to argue that Mike Macdonald (DC, 2021), who is now doing great things with the Ravens, was a huge step above Don Brown and played a pivotal role in reviving Michigan. Harbaugh turned things around with old-fashioned cheating and by hiring good coordinators.
- Dabo Swinney went 25-16 in his first three full seasons as a HC and suffered an embarrassing 70-33 loss to West Virginia in the 2012 Orange Bowl. Then, his fortune started changing for the better when he hired Brent Venables. Now Brent Venables is gone, and Clemson is back to being good-but-not-elite.
With the departure of Kevin Wilson, an unsung hero of OSU’s offensive prowess from 2017 to 2022, the current offensive staff has become an unproven commodity. Brian Hartline is an elite recruiter and developer of wide receivers, but he still has his training wheels on, which is atypical for a program like OSU. Justin Frye came from UCLA where Chip Kelly called the plays. Keenan Bailey and Corey Dennis got their first on-field jobs at OSU!
Now, saying that coordinators are more important than the head coach is not entirely accurate because it’s the responsibility of the head coach to select coordinators. But that’s my point exactly. Even if we go along with the premise that Ryan Day is not elite, he is just a good OC away from taking the next step.
