Although he’ll remain with Ohio State for the duration of its College Football Playoff run, Brian Hartline was officially introduced as South Florida’s new head coach on Monday.
Following the Buckeyes’ Big Ten Championship Game loss on Saturday, the Ohio State offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach flew to Tampa on Sunday to get started at USF. While he plans to return to Ohio State later this week to help the Buckeyes begin preparing for the College Football Playoff, Hartline was at USF on Monday to hold his first team meeting with his new players and participate in an introductory press conference.
In his first public comments since South Florida hired him as its head coach last Wednesday, Hartline outlined why he chose to leave Ohio State for USF, describing the chance to be the Bulls’ head coach as a “world-class opportunity.”
“I am honored and humbled for this world-class opportunity. I've always felt like this is a place that caught my eye from afar,” Hartline said. “Being down in South Florida for a while, I know I've lived in Ohio, I was born and raised there and spent a lot of time there, but I always felt like Florida was my second home. Our family has always felt that way. So, when assessing opportunities, USF was always toward the top of the list, frankly.”
Hartline’s name came up as a candidate for several other coaching jobs that also opened up this year, including Penn State and Kentucky. But Hartline said the state of Florida, where he spent the majority of his NFL career playing for the Miami Dolphins, was where he wanted to be if he left Ohio State.
“Since my playing days in the NFL, I've always felt like Ohio was a big part of my life, but Florida is second to none,” Hartline said. “And I can't emphasize enough how important it was for us, if we were ever going to go anywhere, it would be back to the people in Florida.”
Hartline’s had a lot of success recruiting the state of Florida at Ohio State – all of Ohio State’s starting wide receivers this season (Jeremiah Smith, Carnell Tate and Brandon Inniss), as well as backup wide receiver Bryson Rodgers (a native of Tampa, where USF is located), are from Florida – and he’s excited for the opportunity to now recruit Floridians at all positions to USF.
“Tampa has been a huge part of our recruiting plan, South Florida has been huge, and now I get to live in it, in the hotbed, and bring the best receivers and best DBs and best linemen in the country here,” Hartline said. “Cannot wait.”
Hartline said it was a tough decision to leave Ohio State, where he played from 2005-08 before returning to join the Buckeyes’ coaching staff in 2017, but he felt like USF presented the right opportunity for him to make the jump to a head coaching job.
“I would say I didn't take the decision lightly, but I was also very excited,” Hartline told reporters after his introduction. “My wife is from Columbus, my in-laws are there, her parents are there; it's important. I have three kids, eight, six, and three, and so they're leaving their grandparents. We had to be at the right spot, adamantly, for us to leave, and that was frankly a choice well worth making at that point.”
During his introduction, Hartline thanked Ohio State head coach Ryan Day and athletic director Ross Bjork, former Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer and athletic director Gene Smith and his own head coach at Ohio State, Jim Tressel, for their roles in helping him get to where he is now. And the vision he shared for his program at USF sounded a lot like the core tenets Day has built his own program around at Ohio State.
“We're going to be motivated through love, not fear. We're going to do it for the love of our brother, not for the hate of our opponent. That's how this thing is all going to be built,” Hartline said. “We will create and sustain a real family atmosphere. I think that's very, very important. We will have an authentic love for football and promote a positive environment so that everyone feels a part of it.
“The goal here is a championship mentality in everything that we do with relentless pursuit,” Hartline added later. “I very much look forward to getting to know the entire Bull fan base, connecting with USF community, and I assure you that our goal will be to make you proud. We will win at the highest level. We will chase championships.”
Before he moves down to Tampa full-time to prepare for his first season as USF’s head coach, Hartline will seek to chase one more championship at Ohio State. While Ohio State’s lackluster offensive performance against Indiana has raised questions about Hartline’s split duties, Day said Sunday that Hartline will continue to call Ohio State’s offensive plays in the CFP and expressed confidence in Hartline’s ability to juggle both jobs effectively for the rest of the season, though Day also plans to spend more time working directly on the offensive game plan himself – as he did last year – with there being more time to prepare for each game in the CFP.
“I think that when he's here, he is going to be locked in,” Day said. “He's made it clear that he wants to finish this the right way and be locked in here. He knows that is important for him. Certainly being a Buckeye and all the time he spent here and what he's poured into this place matters to him. So when he goes down there, he's got work to do down there, but when he gets here, he'll be locked in and doing his job here.
“And based on how the month goes, we'll see how that plays into the game week and those types of things, but the good news, at least for me, is that I can spend a lot more time on the game plan now with having a little bit more lead time going into the game. And so, will try to help as best I can.”
Hartline acknowledged that this past week was challenging as he juggled becoming the head coach at South Florida with preparing for the Big Ten Championship Game, but he believes it will be easier to manage going forward now that he has some time to find his balance with both roles before Ohio State plays in the Cotton Bowl on Dec. 31.
“Frankly, I would say last week was the hardest week, just with the amount of things that were moving and being pulled away and all these things. Once we kind of get through this week, we have a little bit of time to get back to take a breath, get organized and then be able to operate a little bit from afar and also be cleaner there,” Hartline said. “So I'm going to feel a lot better moving forward than it was last week. Last week was a tough week.”
