Ohio State football's Ryan Day outlines plan for play-calling for this season
Ryan Day isn’t relinquishing play-calling responsibilities just yet.
In an appearance on the "Buckeye Roundtable" on 97.1 The Fan on Monday night, Day said the process of calling Ohio State’s offense this season will be a “joint effort” between him and Brian Hartline.
“I’ll certainly be involved,” Day said.
Day spent much of the offseason mulling whether to hand over his play-calling duties to Hartline, the wide receivers coach who was promoted to offensive coordinator in January, and he largely delegated them in spring practice.
But Day, who has been the Buckeyes’ primary play-caller since he was hired as an offensive coordinator in 2017 and overseen the highest-scoring seasons in program history, will continue to have the largest say for that side of the ball when they open their season at Indiana on Labor Day weekend.
“Early on, I’ll do a majority of it,” Day said, referring to his role as the play-caller, “but Brian is going to have an opportunity to call it as well as time goes on.”
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Day said he and Hartline would discuss play calls between series.
As he outlined their roles, Day signaled that Hartline could take on a more prominent role with play-calling later in the year or at another point in the future. Hartline has not previously called plays since he began his coaching career as a quality control coach in 2017 before being later promoted to wide receivers coach in 2018.
Day mentioned a desire to “bring him along the right way at the right time” as a play-caller, while praising Hartline's adjustment to handling other parts of his job as coordinator.
“The thing for Brian is he’s done an excellent job of organizing the offense,” Day said. “He’s done a good job of installing for the first time in this preseason. That’s a big part of being a coordinator.”
The willingness from Day to at least ponder turning over play-calling was less a function of the recent results on offense. Ohio State had the second-highest scoring unit in the Football Bowl Subdivision last season, and since he succeeded Urban Meyer in 2019, the Buckeyes have averaged at least 41 points each season.
Instead, the consideration was owed to a desire for him to better manage his time over the course of a season, expanding his presence throughout the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. Game-planning for either the offense or defense can prove demanding.
But Day will stick with it as he moves into his fifth season at the helm, continuing to manage both his head-coaching duties and play-calling.
Joey Kaufman covers Ohio State football for The Columbus Dispatch. Contact him at jkaufman@dispatch.com and follow him on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter @joeyrkaufman.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ryan Day addresses Ohio State football play-calling plan for 2023
