Column: Ohio State’s largely under-qualified offensive staff is holding its players back

From the outside, Ohio State’s 59-3 win over Kent State was a completely dominant victory against an overmatched opponent.

The Buckeyes put up 527 yards of offense, had a net success rate of more than 60% (no other team had more than 40% in Week 3) and got valuable reps for some of their younger players, including a 75-yard touchdown by Chris Henry Jr. and a scoop-and-score by freshman tackle Jamir Perez.

That being said, Ohio State did not improve on any of the issues that plagued them in the loss to Texas — or in many of their losses for the last several years under Ryan Day, for that matter.

The Buckeyes converted only once in eight attempts on third down, and only 2-of-4 on fourth down. Against an opponent like Kent State, where you should have a significant advantage in trenches, that is not good enough.

Ohio State’s offense also continues to get clunky down near the low red zone.

Offensive coordinators have come and gone, but all of Day’s offenses for the past few seasons have struggled when the field shrinks. Their go-to strategy has been to put more and more bad tight ends on the field to do a whole bunch of nothing, rather than playing to their strengths of wide receiver play and team speed.

That scenario is a microcosm of a larger issue at play for Ohio State: Day’s offensive coaching staff is not nearly up to par with what a program at this level should demand.

That starts along the offensive line, where Tyler Bowen has shown an ability to recruit, but zero ability to develop. His predecessor, Justin Frye, suffered from the exact opposite issue. Both of them share the same lackluster resume prior to taking on their role in Columbus.

Before taking over the position group in 2025, Bowen was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Virginia Tech. The Georgia native hasn’t actually coached offensive line since 2017, when he did so for one season at Maryland. Bowen’s only other experience with the position group came at Fordham, an FCS program, in 2015 and 2016.

In Bowen’s previous role as the Hokies’ OC from 2022-24, Virginia Tech’s offense ranked 120th, 57th and 68th, respectively.

As such, while I’m sure he’s a great guy, he is wildly under qualified to be the offensive line coach at Ohio State. The Buckeyes could — and should — be able to hire a veteran, experienced coordinator at one of the most important positions on the field, and not someone who hasn’t even led the position for eight years.

Bowen is far from the only offender on this staff though, as Kennan Bailey’s case is even worse.

Bailey began as an intern at Ohio State in 2016, working his way up to a quality control coach in 2019 before eventually taking over the tight end position in 2023. Since then, despite the position only getting worse year over year, Bailey was further promoted to co-offensive coordinator in 2025, where he was part of the braintrust that helped score 10 points against Indiana and 14 points against Miami at the end of last season.

Now, the tight end position is in the worst shape it has been under Day.

Ohio State continues to force Nate Roberts into a fullback position he has repeatedly shown he is completely incapable of playing, and nobody in the room can block nor catch passes. To make matters even worse, Jelani Thurman, who transferred from OSU to UNC this past offseason, has been the Tar Heels’ best offensive player.

Both Bailey and Bowen have done nothing in their careers to earn them the roles that they currently occupy, and the Buckeyes are paying the price.

The offensive line has struggled in key moments, and the tight end position is a black hole. The underperformance of those two groups is a huge reason why Ohio State struggles in the red zone and on third down, both from a player development standpoint and a puzzlingly stupid scheme.

Then there’s Billy Fessler, the Buckeyes’ passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach.

Fessler’s first real gig was the quarterbacks coach job for two years at Akron, where the Zips ranked 18th nationally in passing yards in 2022 before plummeting to 99th in 2023 under his tutelage. He made a quick stop at UCLA before ending up at Ohio State in the same role.

Again, there is nothing in there that should be qualifying to coach quarterback’s at one of the nation’s most prestigious programs. As a result, Julian Sayin has shown virtually no development between his first and second seasons, and is still unable to see wide open receivers in the middle of the field.

Carlos Locklyn and Cortez Hankton have their faults, but at least they came to Ohio State with some pedigree. Locklyn came to Columbus after two years at Oregon, while Hankton coached at Georgia and LSU prior to joining the Buckeyes.

Outside of those two and Arthur Smith, who Day brought in from the NFL ranks, this Ohio State offensive coaching staff is quite frankly a joke.

The Buckeyes should not be in the business of taking on coaches working their first real gig or coaching positions they haven’t worked with in years. What is the point of recruiting the best players in the country if you aren’t going to give them the best coaches to develop them once they get there?

It is a huge disservice to this roster to have leaders that lack experience and coaching acumen. If Ryan Day is going to take on a true ‘CEO’ role at Ohio State and emphasize the high standards of the program, he should consider surrounding himself with actual qualified coaches who meet that standard.

He should also let his offensive coordinators actually call the offense rather than influencing every decision they make, but that is a topic for another day…