Is Matt Patricia just what Ohio State needs? What he learned from Division III to the NFL

Matt Patricia spent most days last fall talking with Bill Belichick.

The longtime coworkers with the New England Patriots, both out of coaching jobs, passed the time by evaluating the football landscape. Almost all of their experience is in the professional ranks, but they liked what they saw in the college game. The expanded Playoff in particular interested Patricia because of the similarities to the NFL.

“I thought studying it that college football just felt like it was where I wanted to be,” Patricia said. “It kind of just called to me.”

So two months after Belichick’s surprise jump to North Carolina as head coach, Patricia followed his mentor to the college level, getting the nod as Ohio State’s defensive coordinator to replace Jim Knowles, who took the same job at Penn State.

UNC is Belichick’s first college job. For Patricia, Ohio State marks a return to his roots after more than 20 years of pro football. It’s a journey that began with a quick but impactful stop at Division III Amherst College.

In 1999, Patricia was in his first full-time position as a defensive line coach after leaving his career as an aeronautical engineer. Offensive coordinator Don Faulstick, who is now the athletic director at Amherst, played an integral role in getting Patricia into coaching.

Faulstick refers to Patricia as a “tireless worker,” but it was the way he changed the staff for the better that stood out. Patricia had the idea to cut up tape and put videos together to make things easier for the staff to watch film together. It sped up the film process and opened the eyes of everybody around him.

“He was just a little bit ahead of everybody else that way,” Faulstick said. “He made an impact right away on how we were operating as a staff.”

Faulstick’s relationship with Patricia goes back long before he joined the Amherst coaching staff. He recruited the New York offensive lineman to play at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, but Patricia decided to go to Rensselaer instead. A few years later, in Patricia’s senior season, Faulstick ended up as the offensive coordinator at Rensselaer and coached Patricia.

They built a relationship, enough so that when Patricia was ready to get into coaching, he called Faulstick. But his coaching aspirations were bigger than just Amherst. Early on, Patricia told Faulstick his goal was to make it to the NFL.

“A lot of people say that,” Faulstick said. “But are you going to put in the work and are you going to be able to sell yourself? Are you going to be able to meet other people? Because your circle is a Division III circle.”

Patricia spent two seasons at Amherst before making the jump to Syracuse as a graduate assistant, where he coached with current Ohio State secondary coach and co-defensive coordinator Tim Walton.

One day Patricia, who rode a bike to work, approached Faulstick and asked him for a ride to a coaches clinic in Connecticut. They made the drive in a snowstorm so Patricia could introduce himself to longtime coach George DeLeon.

He found a way to get some time with DeLeon, then an assistant at Syracuse. A few days later, Syracuse head coach Paul Pasqualoni called and offered him the graduate assistant position.

Patricia spent three years there before connecting with Belichick and making the jump to the NFL, working his way up from an assistant offensive line coach to the three-time Super Bowl champion defensive coordinator everybody knows now.

When Patricia got the coordinator job in New England, he was largely a 3-4 scheme coach. But as his time with the Patriots went on, he adjusted his defense.

On one hand, offenses in the NFL were changing over time. But the Patriots’ offseasons were often different from other teams’ because of how late they were picking in the NFL Draft. They often took the best players available and adjusted the scheme to them.

“My whole goal is to see what you do well. How do I put you in a position to get on the field and do that job well and to the best of your ability?” Patricia said.

Many wondered whether the success Patricia had in New England was a product of his coaching talent or a result of Belichick running things behind the scenes. That thought never went away, especially after Patricia was fired from his head coaching job at the Detroit Lions after going 13-29-1 in 2 1/2 seasons. Since then, Patricia has gone back to New England for two years and then went to Philadelphia, where, as a special assistant, he was thrown into play calling when Sean Desai was let go in 2023.

After Patricia’s year off, Day made a lot of calls to people who worked in New England to see what was going on during the height of Patricia’s work with Belichick as defensive coordinator from 2012 to 2017.

“What you found out is that he was running the defense,” Day said. “Obviously, (Belichick) had a big hand in that, but as time went on, it was his show.”

It wasn’t just the fact that Patricia ran the meetings that stood out to Day; it was the way he ran things. Patricia was known as a coach who explained the “why” often, instead of just telling the team what it was going to do.

Former Ohio State linebacker Bobby Carpenter played for the Patriots in 2012 and said he recalls a time when they were playing Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts. Patricia explained their third-down defense in a way the seven-year veteran hadn’t heard before.

“The solution was called spinning the dial,” Carpenter said. “It wasn’t something we did every week, but against a guy like (Manning), you had to run stuff that is unconventional that we don’t normally do because he’s going to be so well versed and prepared. … That’s the first time I had somebody explain that to us as opposed to just saying we’re going to disguise things.”

That type of coaching can translate well to the college game.

Patricia is well versed in defensive packages. He can run just about anything, including a 3-4 or 4-3, big nickel, dime or any other scheme. But his game day philosophy was simple: have enough installed to win the game, but not so much that it confuses everybody.

“The beauty of football is to take the extremely complex and boil it down to three or five really simple things so we can detail that out as much as possible,” Patricia said. “I always felt, going into the game, I wanted to make sure we could play fast and aggressive.”

Patricia has evolved as the game of football has, but the way his mind works is still the same.

He still walks around with a pencil over his ear so he can quickly take notes or jot down an idea in a notebook and relay it to the staff or a player later. His mind is constantly thinking about football, and after a year away from the game, he’s back in college at Ohio State, a deal that seems to be working for both sides in the early stages.

Ohio State needed an experienced coordinator with a strong defensive mind, but also one who could coexist with its current staff after a national title.

As for Patricia, now 50? He gets a fresh start.

He watched as Ohio State made the run last season to a national championship. And though much of the talent from that defense is gone, the Buckeyes bring back a strong core this season led by safety Caleb Downs and linebacker Sonny Styles.

It didn’t take long for Patricia to get acquainted with them.

“It’s hard to not walk into the building and try to find Caleb as fast as possible,” Patricia joked. “He is unbelievable, an amazing player, very versatile. We can do some fun things with him.”

When Day began his search to revamp the 2021 defense that finished 59th in total yards, he hired Knowles from Oklahoma State, prioritizing versatility, especially in the secondary. He did so again this time around after Knowles capped his run with the nation’s top-ranked defense.

The key to a quick transition will be Patricia’s ability to connect with the assistants already on staff. He has known Walton since their time together at Syracuse, he has known defensive line coach Larry Johnson for years, and he worked out linebackers coach James Laurinaitis when he was in the draft process.

One of the reasons Patricia made sense as a hire for Day was that he didn’t feel the need to bring in a whole new staff.

“We wanted to make sure our identity of what we do on defense stays intact,” Day said.

Ohio State went from the 96th-ranked pass defense in the country to No. 1 in 2023 and No. 3 in 2024. That’s why Day made Walton the co-coordinator and promoted safeties coach Matt Guerrieri to passing game coordinator.

The Buckeyes are confident in their assistant coaches; they just needed a coordinator who could continue to elevate the talent on the defense without getting away from what’s working. Day believes Patricia’s history strikes the perfect balance, from DIII to the NFL.

“The guys that played for him,” Day said, “really felt like they were getting better because of the way he taught football.”

(Top photo: Kyle Robertson / Columbus Dispatch / USA Today Network via Imagn Images)

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