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Ex-OSU assistant Zach Smith blames Buckeyes’ 2015 blunder on Ed Warinner

Dustin Schutte

By Dustin Schutte

Published:

Former Ohio State assistant coach Zach Smith isn’t done calling out his former colleagues just yet. This time, Smith took a shot at Buckeyes’ former offensive coordinator and offensive line coach Ed Warinner.

Monday evening, former Ohio State linebacker Raekwon McMillan tweeted out that some of his favorite memories and practices in football stemmed from the 2015 college football season. That year, the Buckeyes were fresh off a College Football Playoff title run and were considered by many to be the best team in the sport.

But Ohio State fell short of making back-to-back playoff appearances, losing at home to Michigan State near the end of the season. It was a game in which the Buckeyes failed to hand the ball of to Ezekiel Elliott, having just two carries in the second half of the contest.

McMillan’s tweet came across Smith’s timeline, and the former Ohio State assistant chimed in with an interesting response, blaming Warinner for costing the Buckeyes a second-straight championship.

“And (Ed Warinner) cost all of you a ring. I’m sorry for that,” Smith wrote.

Smith really isn’t pulling any punches.

Warinner was on the Ohio State staff from 2012-16. He served as the offensive line coach and co-offensive coordinator from 2012-14 alongside Tom Herman. In 2015, after Herman took the head coaching job at Houston, Warinner was the primary offensive coordinator while keeping his offensive line duties.

Following the 2016 season, Warinner coached at Minnesota in 2017 and is now the offensive line coach at Michigan.

Dustin Schutte

Dustin grew up in the heart of Big Ten country and has been in sports media since 2010. He has been covering Big Ten football since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter: @SchutteCFB