Ohio St DC Kerry Coombs role with team changed
Ohio State football demoted defensive coordinator Kerry Coombs, giving play calling duties to Matt Barnes
Matt Barnes is the secondary coach.
--2019 hired from Maryland by Ryan Day as assistant secondary coach and special teams coordinator
--2020 given the title of safeties coach and special teams coordinator
--2021 named the secondary coach
It seems, just from watching Ohio St's defense, their biggest problem on defense is the secondary coverage. Ryan Day must see something different. We will see how things work out as the Ryan Day experiment continues to unfold.
Video of three Cleveland.com reporters, after the game last night, talking about the Kerry Coombs move. One of them's pretty animated about it: "This is a huge frickin deal!"
September 19th, 2021 at 4:15 PM ^
Coombs is a great recruiter and their Cincinnati guy. Although, based on the bust rate of OSU DBs in the NFL it’s unclear how good of a coach he actually is.
September 19th, 2021 at 5:24 PM ^
PI every play doesn't work in the NFL or CFP.
September 19th, 2021 at 4:22 PM ^
True but you could plausibly argue there that Bama 2020 makes every defense look terrible.
September 19th, 2021 at 4:28 PM ^
No that was coaching and just lack of motivation from the defense. Their secondary just looked like they didn't care against Alabama, of all teams, and the coaches put their players in terrible positions. Yes, they're are the RPS type parts where sometimes you just get out schemed, but that was not the case for osu. They just keep trotting out the same old coverages that put their players at a disadvantage.
September 19th, 2021 at 3:32 PM ^
Hey Doug, is this huge friggin’ deal? You didn’t make that clear.
September 19th, 2021 at 3:32 PM ^
Sounds like a panic move.
September 19th, 2021 at 3:32 PM ^
Their lack of pass rush would be more concerning to me than secondary play if I was a Buckeye fan.
September 19th, 2021 at 8:23 PM ^
The two are linked.
September 19th, 2021 at 3:33 PM ^
Let’s hope he is miffed and moves on. Seems to be a great recruiter.
September 19th, 2021 at 4:14 PM ^
That’s why Ed Warinner left OSU
September 19th, 2021 at 3:36 PM ^
I’m actually disappointed by this. Kerry Coombs is a legendary high school coach. I’ve been around him and he is the essence of a coach. Hope he bounced back.
September 19th, 2021 at 4:18 PM ^
Ideally he can hang around long enough to completely poison this season for OSU then go back and have a ton of success in high school while badmouthing OSU for publicly embarrassing him.
September 19th, 2021 at 4:27 PM ^
I’d take him with the Bearcats. Let’s hope OSU doesn’t get too crazy and get rid of Day.
September 19th, 2021 at 5:41 PM ^
If love to see Day gone. Their next coach will be worse.
September 19th, 2021 at 6:54 PM ^
You think Urban 2.0 will be worse?
September 19th, 2021 at 8:32 PM ^
Luke Fickell?
September 19th, 2021 at 3:36 PM ^
He is a fantastic recruiter and they probably had to give him at least Co-DC to bring him back but they should have paired him with a strong play calling DC. Obviously that didn’t happen.
September 19th, 2021 at 3:41 PM ^
As nothing bad ever happens to OSU, I see this as a highly successful move other teams will quickly imitate going forward... only for it to go very poorly for the other teams.
September 19th, 2021 at 4:08 PM ^
Yeah, Wink Martindale will resign from the Ravens for health reasons and be immediately hired by the Buckeyes to fix their defense before The Game.
September 19th, 2021 at 3:42 PM ^
Tired: Greg Mattison is a traitor for moving to Ohio State
Wired: Greg Mattison was a mole for Michigan the whole time and wrecked Ohio State's defensive legacy
September 19th, 2021 at 3:49 PM ^
Galaxy brain energy right there.
September 19th, 2021 at 3:47 PM ^
I hope Barnes is their GERG.
September 19th, 2021 at 5:07 PM ^
Breaking out the heavy artillery with the Curse of the GERG! That’s like saying “Nee!” three times to an old woman.
September 19th, 2021 at 3:48 PM ^
Let them fire him and bring him here as a recruiting coordinator or something. Dude gets crazy talent. Just isn’t getting results of late.
September 19th, 2021 at 3:54 PM ^
September 20th, 2021 at 10:23 AM ^
Stroud looks great now. He’s a freshman and is like fourth in the nation in passing yards.
People (OSU nutjobs) are only upset because they are going from Fields and Haskins, who were both Heisman level with their accuracy.
September 19th, 2021 at 3:50 PM ^
isn't Coombs some bomb-ass recruiter? That skill may be more important than actual coaching
September 19th, 2021 at 4:12 PM ^
He’s the Cincinnati specialist on that staff.
September 19th, 2021 at 4:11 PM ^
Coombs is a DB coach. I’m assuming they want him focusing on the secondary, but idk about this Barnes guy and why he’d be the play caller other than “he’s not Coombs”
September 19th, 2021 at 4:15 PM ^
Barnes is also a secondary coach, so that’s really just moving things around rather than increasing focus at a weak area.
September 19th, 2021 at 4:29 PM ^
Like a few years ago when msu made significant changes to the coaching staff...by just giving everyone a different position group or title.
September 19th, 2021 at 4:14 PM ^
I didn’t see much from Coombs defense that looked good since he took over. Ryan Day talked about how much better the team looked stopping the run in his press conference which was an emphasis they stressed in practice. They’ll probably win a lot of games just on talent alone. I’m not sure the issues they have on pass defense can be fixed this year so my guess is they’ll sell out against the run. Here’s hoping Michigan’s receivers get better because there will be opportunities for them take advantage of the Buckeyes.
September 19th, 2021 at 4:18 PM ^
They’re not oblivious to Michigan’s success on the ground. They will focus on run defense the rest of the way. Michigan can beat them this year, but we will need a balanced attack that can get yards on the ground and be a viable threat through the air.
September 19th, 2021 at 5:05 PM ^
Oregon had their way by rushing for 269. Very uncharacteristic to see them get beat up at the line of scrimmage which was supposed to be a strength. Then Tulsa put up 428 in the air. Something’s not right and I think Day is pressing for an answer by the change of DC.
September 19th, 2021 at 5:08 PM ^
Ryan Day has been there with Urban so I’m assuming the team is still focused on Michigan every single day but… I don’t believe any coach is as good at focusing on rivals as Urban Meyer is. Dude crushed UGA, UT and FSU while he was at UF.
We’re well aware of how he fared at OSU. Can Day match Urban’s focus? I dunno but I like to think he can’t. Not because he’s proven he cannot but because it makes me happy to think it.
September 19th, 2021 at 7:15 PM ^
the focus on michigan might be why they are struggling. might need to pull that back so they can more highly ensure wins against other opponents.
i can hope.
September 20th, 2021 at 6:06 AM ^
Their schedule is so weak that they only need to break a sweat for 2-3 games...PSU, MSU and UM.
September 19th, 2021 at 5:28 PM ^
Hopefully. We were projected to gash them left and right with the run in 2018 too...
September 19th, 2021 at 6:20 PM ^
Osu was weak on the perimeter in 2018. We tried to run between tackles that game. I’m t was right into their strength. This offense if it continues developing so far is to be better than 2018. Will OSU keep looking like shit?
September 19th, 2021 at 4:15 PM ^
It seems like an issue of coaching and morale, rather than which plays are being called.
September 19th, 2021 at 4:16 PM ^
knee jerk changes. Ohio state way.
May they suck going forward forever.
September 19th, 2021 at 4:21 PM ^
Fuck Ohio State
September 19th, 2021 at 4:23 PM ^
Oddly enough, Ohio St.'s problem is people figured out their coverage and they keep running the same routes to exploit it.
They broke it down on The Final Drive or whatever that show on BTN is called.
Sounds crazy familiar.
September 19th, 2021 at 4:24 PM ^
That said...they're going to be fine.
Maybe they lose to PSU, but they won't be worse than 9-2 heading into Ann Arbor.
September 19th, 2021 at 6:03 PM ^
MSU could give them fits this year. Kenneth Walker III is legit, I could see him running al over the hated Bucks
September 19th, 2021 at 6:21 PM ^
It’s nice they have to play a physical MSU team the game before us.
September 19th, 2021 at 7:17 PM ^
last time that happened, it woke up urbs. maybe you're right and it will beat them up this time.
September 19th, 2021 at 8:15 PM ^
Wouldn't it be nice if both Michigan St and Michigan beat Ohio St.
September 19th, 2021 at 6:21 PM ^
It’s nice they have to play a physical MSU team the game before us.
It was so nice I had to say it twice.