Was Matt Patricia actually the best offseason hire in college football?

It wasn’t technically Matt Patricia’s first college coaching exam, but it might as well have been.

And although it wasn’t a night game on the last Saturday of August, it came under the brightest lights imaginable.

It was FOX Big Noon Kickoff, it was preseason No. 1 Texas, it was Arch Manning, and it was the Horseshoe, and all of the hype was wrapped in the reality that Ohio State was the defending national champion. 

Patricia had to stare it all down and perform like he had been here before, even though he hadn’t. The defensive savant had been in plenty of situations like this, but it wasn’t quite the same. NFL playoff games and Super Bowls are one thing, and they’re certainly a whole lot. But there’s just something different and unique about a college band nicknamed “The Best Damn Band in the Land,” an iconic college mascot like Brutus and Matthew McConaughey roaming the sideline.

So, after all the offseason bluster, asking if Patricia could acclimate himself to the college game after spending the past couple of decades in the NFL, there would be no grace period. And that seemed fine with Patricia, who calmly performed a defensive coaching clinic against a Texas offense that was supposed to be and still might be one of the best in college football.

Patricia made Steve Sarkisian’s offense look feeble, showing that, just maybe, letting Jim Knowles go in the dead of night to one of its biggest rivals might not be the end of the world after all for Ohio State.

Patricia’s unit kept Texas off the scoreboard until just 3:28 remained in the game, and by that time he had already set the narrative that the biggest pressure-cooker situation you could dream up wasn’t going to get the best of him or his defense. Then, when a little adversity finally hit, Patricia made one more statement when Ohio State, led by his new All-American safety Caleb Downs, calmly stopped Texas at midfield when the Horns somehow had a shot to tie the game.

Ohio State won the defensive slugfest, 14-7, and, just maybe, Patricia had already proved that he was the best offseason hire in college football. Many believed it was Knowles, whose defense helped the Buckeyes win it all last year before Ryan Day‘s program somehow let the brilliant assistant slip out the back door and to Penn State of all places.

When the dust settled on the Knowles saga in the spring, he explained that if Ohio State had simply offered him a new contract before the national time game against Notre Dame, he wouldn’t have explored other options and would’ve returned to Columbus.

It was pretty unfathomable that the guy who directed the top-ranked overall and scoring defense in college football in 2024 could be allowed to get away. But that’s exactly what happened when Ohio State opted to settle Knowles’s contract situation after the title game, not before, and when the school chose not to invite Knowles to the championship celebration, his time in Columbus was over.

The fact that Penn State lured Knowles to State College exactly a week after the title game created angst among Ohio State’s faithful that lasted throughout the offseason. Tom Allen created the opening at Penn State after leaving to run Clemson’s defense after the Nittany Lions’ loss to Notre Dame in the Playoff semifinals, so the timing was perfect, and Knowles is a Philadelphia guy who grew up a Penn State fan and had spoken to head coach James Franklin about the job for many years.

It was all so wonderful in Happy Valley, but where did that leave Ohio State? The Buckeyes suddenly needed a defensive coordinator amid the PR nightmare of losing Knowles to a hated Big Ten rival. They would certainly have to hire a guy with deep college coaching roots and hiring a Big Ten guy would certainly help.

Right?

Instead, exactly a month after the confetti fell on Ohio State in Atlanta, the Buckeyes brought in Patricia, a decorated assistant but at the NFL level. He won 3 Super Bowl championships with the New England Patriots under Bill Belichick, including 2 titles as Patriots defensive coordinator. That was all well and good, but the last time Patricia patrolled a collegiate sideline was as a graduate assistant at Syracuse in 2003.

Patricia had been in the NFL for so long, for what seemed like a coaching lifetime in the Patriots organization along with stops in Detroit and Philadelphia, and hiring him to replace a college coaching lifer like Knowles and asking him to duplicate what Knowles did in Columbus seemed like one giant reach.

And, by the way Coach Patricia, buckle up because in Week 1 of your college coaching baptism, at least in the big-time world of Ohio State football, you’re going to be asked to slow down the latest quarterback to come along named Manning and the preseason No. 1 team.

Good luck, right? 

Turns out Patricia didn’t need any luck against the Longhorns. Yes, he was gifted a defense with Downs at the back end and talent throughout the front 7, but it took an enormous leap of faith for Patricia to even believe he could succeed in big-time college coaching. It would’ve been so much easier to stay tucked into the NFL world he had thrived in (for the most part) for 2 decades.

It also was a huge gamble by Ohio State, coming off a historic season in 2024 and letting Knowles go, then having the audacity to hire a guy with no real college coaching experience. With all due respect to Patricia’s years as a young assistant at RPI, his alma mater, as well as Amherst and Syracuse, he was in uncharted territory the minute he accepted the Ohio State job, and a little over 6 months later he found himself on that burning hot Big Noon stage with Manning and McConaughey.

On a scale of 1 to 10 measuring difficult coaching transitions, this was about a 100.

Fittingly, that’s about the same grade Patricia probably earned against Texas, even from the toughest Buckeye backer. Praise for Patricia came from just about everywhere before the calendar even flipped to September. Sure, Manning was making his debut as the Longhorns’ new starter so there were going to be cobwebs and, sure, Patricia had the unique advantage of the game being at home.

But the challenges were enormous for Patricia on that day and to nail it, right away, was something to behold. Perhaps Knowles, if Ohio State had bothered to offer him that sweet new extension before the national title game, might have aced the test, too. We’ll never know, because Knowles was busy shutting down Nevada in Penn State’s season opener.

In late July, critics of the Patricia hire were still hammering this point home — just how could Ohio State do this? College football analyst Ty Hildenbrandt said this on The Solid Verbal podcast: “Matt Patricia, with no relevant college experience recently, if at all, steps in after it not going well in the NFL. … I don’t really get the hire. The Patricia thing left me relatively uninspired as well.”

But sometimes words spoken in the spring and summer fall flat in the fall, when the actual games are played and coaching character is revealed. Doing what he did in galvanizing his new defense in the massive win over Texas is still just 1 of 12 regular-season games, and those slow to give credit to Patricia after the Week 1 conquest will surely laugh off the shutout Ohio State pitched against FCS opponent Grambling State in Week 2.

But those who really know the nature of football, of sports, will point to the blanking of Grambling and say that was a prime spot for just a little bit of a letdown. Instead, Patricia had his guys totally on point, as the Buckeyes held the Tigers to 166 total yards and 10 first downs while holding onto that shutout in extended garbage time when it would’ve been easy to relent just a little.

Then in Week 3 against Ohio, Patricia’s defense provided a whole different kind of service. With the high-octane Buckeyes offense stuck in the mud while putting up just 13 points in the first half, it was Patricia’s guys who held down the fort, limiting the Bobcats to a measly field goal late in the 2nd quarter.

And when Patricia’s unit suffered the rarest of breakdowns by allowing a 67-yard TD pass in the first minute of the 3rd quarter, all it did was button up, blank the Bobcats the rest of the way and allow the OSU offense to finally get rolling. The final numbers in the 37-9 victory were similar to the Grambling game, with Ohio managing just 9 first downs and 181 total yards.

That’s all because of heavy talent, yes. But it’s also confident coaching, and Patricia deserves his early season flowers as much as, if not more than, any head or assistant coach in the country. 

A scant 16 points allowed in his first 3 games on the job, while all those analysts were questioning everything about the Patricia hire? That’s a big-time early season salvo from the man who just turned 51 this past Saturday.

Patricia has already shut down a lot of that offseason noise, but skeptics will remain until — or if — Patricia can outdo Knowles when Penn State comes to Columbus on Nov. 1. That’ll surely be a football sight to behold, just as the Texas stage was, when an NFL lifer and champion showed he could hang in college, too.

It’s still really early, but just maybe Patricia was the best damn college coaching hire in the land this offseason.