How good is Ohio State defensive coordinator Matt Patricia without Bill Belichick?
Ryan Day asked the same question a lot of Ohio State fans are asking: How much of Matt Patricia’s success running the New England Patriots ’ defense was due to him, and how much of it was Bill Belichick ?
“That honestly was one of my questions,” Day said Friday. “What did it look like (in New England?)”
It is more than a fair query. It is a mandatory ask. Was it Belichick’s brilliance as a defensive strategist that was most responsible for the Patriots winning three Super Bowls with Patricia listed as defensive coordinator? Or did the 50-year-old New Yorker, hired in February to run the Buckeyes ’ defense, deserve most of the credit?
To these eyes, the answer is wait and see. Patricia spent six seasons running the Pats’ defense, overseeing a group that never finished worse than 10th in points allowed, including No. 1 in 2016, but also finished in the bottom 10 of yards allowed three times. All that was with Belichick in charge of the overall operation.
Without Belichick? After the 2017 season, following the Pats’ Super Bowl loss to Philadelphia, Patricia became Detroit’s head coach. Disaster ensued. The Lions went 13-29-1 in three years under Patricia, who got off on the wrong foot with players, some of whom accused him of being overly inflexible and arrogant.
In his only other NFL stint coaching without Belichick, Patricia worked as a senior defensive assistant for Philadelphia in 2023. Eagles coach Nick Sirianni promoted him to defensive play caller in December, after Philly gave up 42 and 33 points in consecutive losses, but the team still lost three of its final four games, ending with a 32-9 loss to Tampa Bay in the NFC wild card game.
Ryan Day insists Matt Patricia is right man for the job
So the question remains: What is Patricia without Belichick? Day is convinced the answer is … exactly what Ohio State needs.
“He’s very, very intelligent, really knows defensive football, and the guys who played for him really felt they were getting better because of the way he taught football, fundamentally,” Day said of the man who will be head coach of OSU’s defense. “Even our guys in the building, in the short time he’s been here, it’s made a lot of sense in how he teaches the game.”
Day grew up in New England and was coaching quarterbacks at Boston College when Patricia was the Patriots’ defensive coordinator. He spoke of “credibility” when discussing his new hire. Yet Patricia’s three Super Bowl rings were not enough to win him the OSU job.
“You ask guys who were actually in the building," Day said. "You ask coaches he coached with. You have to make a lot of calls to find out about people. What you found out is he was running the defense. Now, certainly, (Belichick) had a big hand in that, but as time went on there it was (Matt’s) show.”
It absolutely was Patricia’s show in Detroit, which is more of an indictment than attaboy.
“Going from a coordinator to a head coach, there is no book,” Patricia said. “Until you’re in that position … it’s not easy.”
It is made harder when trying to be someone you’re not, which is where Patricia thinks he went wrong.
“I wasn’t the best version of a coach,” he said. “I didn’t do a good job.”
Coming off the Super Bowl loss with New England, he arrived in Detroit demanding the Lions play to the same level as the Patriots, which turned out to be a rookie mistake.
“I didn’t do a good job of walking into a new building. They didn’t lose (the Super Bowl),” he said of Detroit. “I never reset myself well enough with, ‘Hey, I’m in someplace new.’ These guys didn’t have that journey last year. I have to start teaching again, to build again.”
Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork, who was involved in Patricia’s interview process, said he believes what happened in Detroit has made Patricia a better coach.
Bjork also addressed how he and Day thoroughly vetted Patricia, including asking him about his 1996 arrest for sexual assault while he and a Rensselaer Poly Institute teammate were on spring break in Texas. The case was dismissed when the woman was unable to testify, saying the stress of a trial brought too much pressure. Patricia told reporters in 2018 he was wrongly accused.
“We asked him directly, there was a lot of information that was already vetted back in 2018, and we are more than comfortable with Matt,” Bjork said. “Once you get to know him you know his character, and what it’s all about.”
Why is Patricia interested in coaching in college , something he has not done since working as a graduate assistant at Syracuse for two seasons (2001-2002)? He said he enjoys building a roster, and the transfer portal makes the college game feel more like the NFL in that regard.
How much of a concern is Patricia's lack of recruiting experience?
Patricia also said he enjoys recruiting, which he has not done in more than 20 years. How much of a concern is that?
“I don’t think the recruiting part of it is going to be very difficult at all,” Day said.
My take? Patricia is following a career path similar to Chip Kelly, who used his one season at Ohio State to improve his shot at landing a coordinator job in the NFL. Kelly resigned as UCLA’s head coach after the 2023 season to become the Buckeyes’ offensive coordinator, then left OSU to take the OC job with the Las Vegas Raiders, nearly doubling his salary to $6 million in the process.
Regardless of his career ambitions, Patricia faces a decent level of pressure stepping in for Jim Knowles, who surrendered his title as OSU’s defensive coordinator to take on the same role at Penn State.
“It’s an opportunity for him,” Day said of Patricia. “It’s Ohio State. I think he understands the culture. We spent a lot of time talking. He’s excited to be here.”
And probably excited to prove he can coach a top-10 defense without you-know-who looking over his shoulder.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State football defensive coordinator Matt Patricia goes it alone
