Matt Patricia’s goal as he builds his first defense at Ohio State is simple: To put Ohio State’s players in positions that allow them to do what they do best.
Patricia’s defensive philosophy isn’t tied to a specific structure, and that could work to his advantage as he takes over as Ohio State’s defensive coordinator. Patricia’s approach dating back to when he won two Super Bowls as the New England Patriots’ defensive coordinator has been to fit his defense around his personnel, and he inherits plenty of talent to work with in Columbus.
Because Patricia’s defenses in New England were known for using a variety of packages and changing from week to week to match up with opponents, one of the biggest questions surrounding his hire has been how his defensive philosophy will translate to the college game, where he’ll be working with less experienced players. But while Patricia has two “bibles” full of play calls and concepts that he’s accumulated over three decades in coaching, he says his goal has always been to keep things simple for his players, allowing them to play fast and aggressively.
“I think the beauty of football, and definitely something I learned at New England, was take the extremely complex and let's try to boil it down to maybe three to five things, really simple, so we can really detail that out as much as possible,” Patricia said Friday in his first interview session as Ohio State’s defensive coordinator. “Yes, we have lots of packages and all that stuff. But I always felt going into a game, my whole goal was like ‘I just want to make sure they can go play fast and play aggressive,’ so I don't want to have too much where they can't do that. I want them to be able to go play.
“They play – I'm not playing, they play the game. So let them get on the field, let them play fast, let them play aggressive, and I think that is a good balance of making sure you have enough to defend what you're going to see, but also let the players go play free enough where they can be aggressive and have the tools on the field that they need.”
That’s not to say that Patricia won’t continue to utilize a variety of packages at Ohio State. He views that as a way he can put more players in position to play to their strengths by creating roles that fit them best, all the while allowing the Buckeyes to do more defensively without putting too much on their starters’ plates.
“My whole goal is to try to figure out ‘What do you do well? How do I put you in the best position to go get on the field and do that job well to the best of your ability?’ Because if you can play fast, you can play aggressive, because you know I have you in your skill set, then you're going to be disruptive as a defensive player,” Patricia said. “You're going to help us win as a defense, win as a team, and we can fit the pieces around where everybody goes in that accord. And then go from there.
“I've coached all of it … I've coached 3-4, 4-3, nickel, big nickel, dimes, all those packages; four-down fronts, five-down fronts, odd spacing, just you kind of do it through the course of the year. To me, it's all like, ‘Hey, that guy can do this or that guy can do this.’ And then I also think it creates roles. So it's not always the same 11 on the field. So you can have a really good skill set and you can do something; if it's in a critical situation, then you got to get you in that spot and help you be in that situation to win the game.”
“Yes, we have lots of packages and all that stuff. but I always felt going into a game, my whole goal was like ‘I just want to make sure they can go play fast and play aggressive,’ so I don't want to have too much where they can't do that. I want them to be able to go play.”– Matt Patricia on his defensive philosophy
While Patricia had his ups and downs as an NFL coach – the most notable down coming when he went just 13-29-1 as the head coach of the Detroit Lions, an experience Patricia says he has learned from – Ryan Day is confident Patricia’s successes in the league will translate to Ohio State. There have been plenty of examples of coaches making successful transitions from the NFL to Ohio State in recent years – including Day himself, former co-defensive coordinator and secondary coach Jeff Hafley and current co-defensive coordinator and secondary coach Tim Walton, who worked alongside Patricia at Syracuse in 2002 – and Day believes coaching in the NFL and college football is more similar now than it’s ever been before.
“I think a lot of things that are going on, there's a trickle-up and a trickle-down effect right now, and you're seeing a lot of that happening. You're seeing a lot of guys transition (from the NFL to college or vice versa), I think now more than in the past,” Day said. “What's going on in the NFL and what's going on in college, you're seeing a lot of carryover there. I think with the playoff system in place, you're seeing that. You're seeing the coach-to-player communication, you're seeing huddling more. The hashmarks are different and there's certain rules that are different, but there's a lot of similarities now. So I think it's gonna carry over well. You see quarterbacks who run and are mobile in the NFL nowadays. So there's a lot more simulators now than in the past, and being in the league for just a couple of years, the transition isn't as crazy as maybe it had been in the past.”
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Patricia’s open-minded approach from a schematic and personnel perspective was one reason why Day hired Patricia. While Day wants Ohio State’s defense to evolve under Patricia, he wanted to keep the rest of his defensive coaching staff intact and bring in someone who would collaborate well with them, which he believes Patricia will.
“Pairing him with Tim Walton as a co-coordinator, pairing him with Larry Johnson, Matt Guerreri, James Laurinaitis, that was important to have continuity. When you interview certain coordinators, you know, they have an idea of what they want to do, they want to come in and run their style of defense, they want to bring in their own guys … so part of that was having somebody that was willing to work with the guys that were in the room,” Day said. “I think that we need to continually look at how we have to evolve with our defense, and Matt brings a different approach to the game in terms of he's run different styles of fronts in the past. He's been multiple in what he's done. And I think when you look at his defenses, they've always utilized their players … But we want to make sure that our identity of what we do on defense stays intact as we have movement on our staff.”
The process of building Ohio State’s defense for the 2025 season will ramp up significantly in just over a week when the Buckeyes begin spring practice on March 17. That’s when Patricia will start to truly get a feel for Ohio State’s defensive personnel and how he can put them in the best positions to succeed. But he’s excited about the talent he’ll be able to build around, starting with All-American safety Caleb Downs.
“I mean, it's hard not to walk in the building and try to find Caleb as fast as possible. I mean, he is an unbelievable, amazing player, very versatile. You look at a guy like that and think, ‘We're going to be able to do some really fun things with him. And he's super smart, and he's such a great student of the game, and his approach is amazing,” Patricia said.
Linebackers Sonny Styles and Arvell Reese and cornerbacks Davison Igbinosun and Jermaine Mathews Jr. are among the other Buckeye defenders who have caught Patricia’s eye going into spring practice.
“Sonny Styles, I mean, when you look at him and Arvell, I mean, those are guys, we always had big ‘backers (in the NFL), I walked in and I was like, ‘OK, these guys are, they're big, they're long, they can move, they eat up a lot of space.’ So now my brain just starts going like, ‘Oh, we can do this. We can move him here. We can put him there. We can line up here and do all those things,’” Patricia said. “But then you got IGB outside, Jermaine, you have so many great players. It's exciting.”