Don't Expect Much Change From Matt Patricia And Ohio State's Defense In 2025

The Ohio State Buckeyes won the College Football National Championship in 2024-25 in large part because of their defense. OSU led the country in yards given up per game with just 254.6. The Buckeyes also gave up only 12.9 points per game, which was also the top mark in college football.

Change is inevitable, though, especially in sports. Now, Ryan Day and his program are looking to repeat in 2025 despite the fact that they lost defensive coordinator Jim Knowles to the same position at Penn State.

Nailing Knowles' replacement was vital for Day and the Buckeyes in order to keep continuity on their high level of defensive play, so he went out and hired former NFL head coach and Super Bowl-winning defensive coordinator Matt Patricia to lead OSU's defense into the future.

Patricia will be aided by the fact that several members of the 2024 defensive staff will be working with him. That includes secondary coach Tim Walton, defensive line coach Larry Johnson, linebackers coach James Laurinaitis and safeties coach Matt Guerrieri.

Day is pumped about the blend of old and new his defense will feature this season.

"I’m very excited about our defense and what we’re doing," Day said at Big Ten Media Days (h/t On3). "We wanted to keep continuity there, and that was one of the reasons it took us a long time and a very thorough process in hiring Matt. You know, when you look at Tim [Walton] and Larry [Johnson] and James [Laurinaitis] and Matt Guerrieri, these guys hit a huge part of what we did last year on defense, and so we want to keep that continuity. We want to run the Ohio State defense, and Matt was willing to embrace that.”

Patricia isn't Knowles, so there should be an expectation that Ohio State will do some things differently in 2025. With that said, Day was clear that finding a coordinator who was willing to bend to the Ohio State way of doing things was important. Patricia does have a ton of NFL experience that he'll likely rely on, and that will provide wrinkles.

One gets the sense that Day brought in Patricia to use his experience to pull the right strings at the right time, though. OSU didn't need a defensive overhaul, and Patricia wasn't hired to reinvent the wheel.

"I think one of the things he does a great job of is putting guys in situations that would be successful when you look at the Patriots and his background," Day said of Patricia. "So, he’ll have his little different changes, but we want to keep, really, the structure of what we’ve done in the past and keep that going."