Bill O’Brien has been named the new offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Ohio State, the university announced on Friday.
After longtime coach Joe Paterno was fired, O’Brien coached Penn State for two years before joining the New England Patriots as offensive coordinator this season.
MORE: Bill O’Brien, the Ohio State offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, is a fascinating man.
It is anticipated that O’Brien, 54, will possess sufficient offensive freedom to free up coach Ryan Day from play-calling responsibilities. A year ago, Day directed plays even though he appointed wide receivers coach Brian Hartline as the team’s offensive coordinator.Day said in a statement, “He brings with him a wealth of knowledge – and a tremendous amount of success – at both the NFL and collegiate levels.” “Over his career, he has developed some truly elite players and run NFL and Power 5 programs. He is an excellent and experienced offensive coach.” He definitely strengthens our personnel and will be a great teacher and recruiter for us.”
O’Brien will join coach Ryan Day’s staff in place of Corey Dennis. Dennis has spent the last four years coaching the quarterbacks for the Buckeyes. He is the son-in-law of former OSU coach Urban Meyer. It was only Wednesday when Dennis was out recruiting.
According to a press release, Dennis is expected to move into an as-yet-undefined job inside the program. HartlineBefore taking a job as head coach of the Houston Texans, O’Brien was the head coach at Penn State in 2012 and 2013. During his seven-year tenure, he guided the Texans to three postseason appearances. When the team opened 2020 with a 0–4 record, he was sacked.
He was then hired by Nick Saban to serve as the quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator at Alabama. Alabama’s average scoring point total of 39.9 in 2021 placed them sixth in the country. Under O’Brien’s guidance, Crimson Tide quarterback Bryce Young won the Heisman Trophy that year. With an average of 41.1 points, the Crimson Tide finished fourth in the country in 2022.He coached a Patriots offense this season that tied Carolina for the lowest scoring average in the league with only 13.9 points per game.
O’Brien, a native of Massachusetts, was a Brown football player. After graduating from his alma university, he went on to coach at Georgia Tech, Maryland, and Duke. The Patriots were his first NFL coaching position. During his five years with the team, he worked with Tom Brady as an offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. The Patriots were defeated by the New York Giants in the Super Bowl during O’Brien’s last season.
Then, in the wake of defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse scandal, he was hired by Penn State to replace Paterno.In spite of the Sandusky scandal and the ensuing fines, O’Brien guided the Nittany Lions to an 8-4 record in 2012, earning him the title of Big Ten Coach of the Year.
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Ohio State President Walter “Ted” Carter Jr. today announced that Ross Bjork will become the university’s next senior vice president and Wolfe Foundation-Eugene Smith Endowed Athletics Director, pending approval by the Board of Trustees. Bjork, who has more than 30 years of experience in intercollegiate athletics, will begin his tenure as athletics director at Ohio State on July 1, 2024.
A former student-athlete, Bjork’s career in athletics administration has consistently focused on competitive success, advances in the student-athlete experience and academic excellence.Carter stated that not many athletic directors have achieved such a remarkable and robust track record of accomplishment in the community, in the classroom, and in athletics. “We have found in Ross a highly intelligent and effective leader—not to mention a fierce competitor—at Ohio State, where the bar is extremely high.”
At Texas A&M University, Bjork is presently the director of athletics, managing nearly 600 student-athletes who participate in 20 varsity sports at the Division I level.
The institution has broken all previous records under his leadership in terms of total grade point average, NCAA Academic Progress Rate, and NCAA Graduate Success Rate. In addition to Kyle’s rehabilitation, Bjork was instrumental in starting the biggest fundraising effort in Texas A&M athletics history.Throughout his tenure at Texas A&M and beyond, Bjork is renowned for selecting accomplished coaches. His three 2021 head coach appointments all had fantastic debut seasons: women’s golf advanced to the NCAA Championship semifinals, men’s golf qualified for the national meet for the first time since 2019, and baseball advanced to the Men’s College World Series final four.
Bjork advised and contributed to the creation of a name, image, and likeness statute for Texas legislators in the spring of 2021. The development of AMPLIFY and AMPLIFY Local Exchange, which provide student-athletes with resources and education on money, networking, personal branding, and media training, was then under his direction.The head of the university’s board of trustees, Hiroyuki Fujita, stated, “The landscape of college athletics is changing every day, and Ohio State was firmly committed to finding an athletics director who would lead us with confidence and innovative thinking into the future.” Ross Bjork is the perfect addition to the Buckeye family; he embodies everything we could have dreamed of and more.
Bjork was the University of Mississippi’s vice chancellor for intercollegiate sports and director of athletics before to coming to Texas A&M. He was the Power 5 conference’s youngest athletics director when hired. He established the Health and Sports Performance unit, which combines sports medicine, strength and conditioning, and established a new collaboration with IMG Properties. He also revamped the external relations organization.& Sports Performance, which offers a combination of counseling, nutrition, strength and conditioning, sports medicine, and executive-level administrative support for academic support, finance, and facilities/game operations. Additionally, Mississippi had their best-ever Learfield Directors Cup finish in the school’s history under Bjork’s leadership.
Before that, Bjork served as Western Kentucky University’s director of intercollegiate athletics. Under his leadership, the school’s student-athletes and athletic teams achieved quick success in a variety of sports, including football, men’s basketball, women’s volleyball, cross country, and more. Additionally, under Bjork’s direction at Western Kentucky, for the first time in the program’s history, the 391 student-athletes’ cumulative average GPA was over 3.0.
He has also served on the senior athletics staffs of the University of Miami (2003–2005), University of California, Los Angeles (2005–2010), and University”Ohio State represents the culmination of these efforts,” Bjork stated. “I have been extraordinarily blessed to be a product of college athletics as a student-athlete and fortunate to work with so many outstanding student-athletes, coaches, staff, and university leaders throughout my career.” Being a member of Buckeye Nation, with all of its legendary customs and impressive track record, is an enormous honor and a task that my family and I are eager to take on. I am eager to get going.
Longtime senior vice president and Wolfe Foundation Endowment Athletics Director Gene Smith, who declared his retirement in the summer of 2024, will be succeeded by Bjork. Soon after, a university search advisory group and a nationwide search were launched for Ohio State’s next athletics director.Smith stated, “Ross is ideally suited to enter our Buckeye community and have an instant impact.” As I’ve already stated, Ohio State has given me the chance of a lifetime for my career, and for that, I will always be grateful. Working with Ross to facilitate a seamless and successful transition with our student-athletes, coaches, department staff, and university leaders will be my last, major assignment during the coming months. Bjork will be a part of the university’s President’s Cabinet in her capacity as senior vice president and director of athletics under the Wolfe Foundation’s Eugene Smith Endowment. He is also a member of the NCAA Division I Student-Athlete Experience Committee and the first vice president of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA). In addition to chairing the Southeastern Conference Awards Committee, he has participated in a number of national groups, such as the NCAA Division I Working Group on Transfers and the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Oversight Committee. Bjork has two sons with his spouse, Sonya. He played fullback for the football team at Emporia State University in Kansas, where he also acquired a bachelor’s degree in recreation management. Western Illinois University awarded him a master’s degree in athletic administration. His mother was raised on the family farm in Williamstown, Ohio, where she was born and raised. She still believes strongly in TBDBITL.
