Brian Hartline makes strong admission that confirms a major suspicion around last week leading up to Ohio State’s loss to Indiana
Brian Hartline admitted what Buckeye Nation saw with how last week played out for Ohio State.
Last week didn’t start great for the Ohio State Buckeyes and it didn’t end great either with a loss in the Big Ten Championship to the Indiana Hoosiers.
It had to be a long, stressful week in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center in Columbus as the Buckeyes prepared to face Indiana. Ohio State learned late Tuesday night that offensive coordinator Brian Hartline would be heading to South Florida to become a head coach. National Signing Day was on Wednesday and the Buckeyes lost one of their top recruits with four-star WR Kayden Dixon-Wyatt flipping to USC. It didn’t stop there, Ohio State had to battle for its top commitment five-star WR Chris Henry Jr. until he signed last Friday.
Brian Hartline admits last week was a lot leading up to the Big Ten Championship
“Frankly, I will say that last week was the hardest week, just with the amount of things that were moving and being pulled away and all of these things,” Hartline said in an interview on Monday. “Once we kind of got through, I think this week we have a little bit of time to get back to take a breath, get organized, then be able to operate a little bit from afar.
“I’m going to feel a lot better moving forward than I was last week. Last week was a tough one.”
Hartline is in South Florida the early part of this week beginning some of his head coaching duties with the Bulls. Hartline has already made a defensive coordinator hire and he will make his way back to Ohio later this week to begin bowl prep. The Buckeyes will be off until New Year’s Eve, when they play the winner of Texas A&M and Miami in the Cotton Bowl.
With how last week went, it was sort of fitting that the Buckeyes came out and scored 10 points. The play-calling and execution in the become was bad for the Buckeyes and really the tip of the iceberg to why they lost 13-10 to Indiana. Ohio State’s defense gave up a couple more explosive plays than they typically do, but holding Indiana to 13 points should have been good enough to win. It wasn’t. Ohio State went on 70+ yard drives twice late in the fourth quarter and came away with zero points.
Ryan Day has been adamant that Hartline’s role won’t change the rest of the way and that he will remain the offensive play-caller. Now that the dust has settled from last week and the Buckeyes have time to prepare for their next game, it would be a real letdown if the offense didn’t return to form on Dec. 31.
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