Ohio State did the unthinkable this past weekend, dropping another game to Michigan for the fourth straight season, but it was a lot worse this time than the previous three years. The Buckeyes went out this off-season, spent around $20 million in NIL, and brought back almost every important player from last year’s team, but still couldn’t get the job done against a Wolverine team with six wins going into the Match-Up.
Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day will most likely be looking for a new job this offseason if he doesn’t win the national championship, and Ohio State will be one of the best jobs to open up in recent memory.
Many big-time coaches will be targeted for the role, and here are five names that could be walking the sidelines at the Horseshoe next fall.
Matt Campbell has been one of the hottest names in the college football world for some time now, and the 45-year-old head coach has done wonders in his first few seasons at Iowa State and has them playing in the Big 12 title this weekend for a spot in the college football playoffs.
The three-time Big 12 Coach of the Year is an Ohio native growing up in Massillon, and right now, hiring a coach who grew up in the state seems like a must since people from Ohio know what it takes to beat Michigan.
Campbell won’t be Ohio State’s first choice, but his name will be floated out there since he has ties to the state. If top coaching candidates turn down the Buckeyes, then there is a good chance the Iowa State head Coach could be returning home.
Dan Lanning has taken Oregon to new heights in his third season and is currently the only head coach in college football who is still undefeated. Lanning is viewed as the youngest and brightest coach in the sport among many who study the game, and there is a chance that Ohio State will throw all the money in the world at him. Oregon took down the Buckeyes in a great showing a few months ago, and many people around the Ohio State program fell in love with the 38-year-old.
Getting Lanning away from Eugene will take a lot, but turning down Ohio State will be tough. He knows he can rule the Big Ten there and grab many elite players in the Midwest who won’t want to go all the way to Oregon. The Ducks head coach should be the Buckeyes’ first choice, but that seems more like a fantasy than reality.
With everything that has happened with the program over the last four years, the old Ohio State coach, Urban Meyer, seems like a real possibility. When Meyer stepped down at the end of 2018, he gave Ryan Day control of the team, but with Day losing to Michigan four times and ruining everything Meyer built over seven years with the Buckeyes, there is a chance he will want to get back into coaching.
Meyer hasn’t coached any football since he was the head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2021. That season was one of the worst by a coach in the NFL’s history, and Meyer probably doesn’t want that to be the thing he is remembered for.
Going back to Ohio State and beating Michigan again will put him back in a good place in football, and he could coach for five to seven more years since he just turned 60 years old this past summer. Meyer probably won’t be the Buckeye’s first option, but he might be in their top three names.
Marcus Freeman is just like Dan Lanning, one of the youngest and best head coaches in the sport that many people love, but Freeman has ties to Ohio State, growing up in Ohio, playing college football, and coaching for the Buckeyes.
Freeman has been the head coach at Notre Dame for the past three seasons, putting the Fighting Irish in a great position to win it all this year. Freeman is only 38 years old, so he is so young, but he commented a few years ago that playing at Ohio State was a mistake and that he should’ve picked Notre Dame when committing to playing college football in 2004.
Ohio State could use a guy like Freeman, who has a great defensive mind and knows what it takes to be a Buckeye and how to beat Michigan, but will he say yes, or is he still aboard the Notre Dame train?
Mike Vrabel has been linked to the Ohio State head coaching job for a while now, but this is the first time in a while that Vrabel is not a head coach of any team, which will make it easier for the Buckeyes to pursue.
Vrabel coached and played for Ohio State, and many Buckeye fans want the 49-year-old coach, but whether he wants them will be the real question. Vrabel will be on the short list of many NFL head coaching jobs this offseason, and if he wants to stay in the pros, then Ohio State will have to look elsewhere for their head coach.
The former Titans head coach should be the Buckeyes’ first call. If he says no, Ohio State may keep Ryan Day if they don’t like the other options.
Ohio State is going to need to make a move this off-season because Day isn’t the right answer. The loss to Michigan shows that the program is not where he needs to be to beat their biggest rival; it seems like Day will be moving on from the Buckeyes either on his own or getting shown the door.
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