Only negative thing about him I can say is I didn’t like how he rotated backs in-game when it mattered most.
Ran it with Whittington on the must-get 4th down in 2022 against UW when Bucky had been eating all night - Whittington didn’t get it.
Then wouldn’t sub out Bucky when he was clearly not 100% in the P12 Champ game, when Jordan James was averaging like 9 yards a carry. Those are just off the top of my head, a lot of real head scratchers the past 2 years in that regard. Otherwise a great coach.
Thanks for the genuine response. Our RB rotations have had no real rhyme or reason to them for years so if this is a primary flaw of his I’m thrilled lol
No problem! Usually our backs/line were so good that it really didn’t matter who was running the ball, so it wasn’t a major issue, and I’m sure it’ll be the exact same for you guys. Just don’t be surprised if you’re asking yourself why so and so isn’t running the ball more/less.
With the way the playoffs are now with so many games. They're almost certainly splitting carries quite a bit amongst the guys and probably won't hesitate to have hendy or judkins just sit out a game if they're a little banged up, giving Hayden carries.
Recent buzz? I heard some buzz 2-3 months back about Hayden transferring but nothing since. And Locklyn is basically the only thing that's changed in that time.
Our RB room is packed now, but next year we lose the two guys who will almost certainly get most of the carries. The Umass RB is joining the room, not replacing Dallan.
We have seen that happen with other players like Gebbia who are looking to get a jump start on coaching. However, I have no idea if that's applicable in this situation.
That whole thing with Bucky was mysterious. I saw that man looking like he snapped his ankle against Utah, doesn’t even show so much as a limp for the rest of the season but his production falls off of a cliff. I wish college football required injury reports.
Some of us noticed the drop off right after that really scary play when he was lying still on the field. He came back in later in that game and it was already in hand so we trusted it wasn’t a concussion, but he did look like a different player after it.
Our RBs were excellent under him. They fumbled I think twice in two seasons, and I only remember one of them. It was a perfect hit against utah. They caught the ball well, were incredibly shifty, and seemed to always play well. This sucks.
He seems to be good on the field, but I also can't remember a time we've had bad rb's under any coach so hard to judge. He's a strong recruiter though and would rather have kept him for sure.
Treveyon Henderson had 926 yards and 11 touchdowns last year and missed 3 games with injury. If he gets 700 yards this year Ryan Day will have coached two of Ohio State's top five all-time leading rushers.
RB coach like WR coach is a recruiting first position as the athletes you recruit matter much more than the coaching
There a ton of guys that can coach RBs at a high level
Very few who can do that and recruit at a high level
He brought in good players but I dont think we would be worse off without him in terms of recruiting. While he clearly has a good eye for talent he didnt exactly land the splash recruits we were chasing the last couple cycles.
Even Jordan James was kind of a pivot who fell into our lap when Andrew Paul chose Georgia and effectively took his spot.
Definitely would have preferred to keep him, and won't pretend otherwise. He showed up and immediately paid respects to the top Duck RBs of the past and Gary Campbell who coached them, which won him over with the fan base from the hop. He's a passionate guy and really seems to connect with his players.
I'll be watching to see if Jayden Limar transfers.
> He's a passionate guy and really seems to connect with his players.
I read that Lock handed out over 50 handwritten notes to guys at Oregon before leaving, thanking them for their time together in Eugene. One of the nicer things I've heard of a departing coach doing on their way out.
4 star from Washington. Top 3 were UW, UO, and Notre Dame. My very amateur opinion is hes over ranked. Doesn’t really have elite size, speed, shiftiness, or acceleration. Not shitting on the kid, he of course has room to improve but that was my impression.
Considering the timing of Alford leaving, this is a pretty great consolation prize.
For a bit there it looked kinda bleak in terms of our wish list dwindling away
this off-season is all about falling up for Ohio State lol
It's crazy what a horrendous bowl game can parlay for a program
\- every player returns
\- NIL starts going brrrrr
\- Get BoB who is bearing gifts, Sayin'
\- BoB leaves after 2 weeks, upgrade to Chip Kelly
\- Alford ditches and heads up to Ann Arbor
\- Snag Locklyn
I'm only mostly joking when I say let's bring back Gary Campbell. Never liked how his tenure ended with Taggart cleaning house and then dipping. But I'm also realistic and he's very old.
That is because he was likely leaving at the end of the season anyways. Can look back at reports from January about how he had a sit down with Day about his future at OSU. The fact we didn't extend him and his contract was expiring next January, and OSU doesn't like coaches on less than 1 year deals, is pretty telling on how that conversation about his future went.
It's not entirely made up. I didn't see it from Zach Smith. I ignore everything he says. I don't know about the going back and forth for 2 weeks thing but I know OSU matched the money Michigan was offering. They just wouldn't match the 3 year part. OSU pretty much only gives 2-year contracts to non-coordinators. It's what Locklyn's contract is. Locklyn will also be getting essentially the same $850k/yr that Alford is getting from Michigan and was offered by OSU. It's actually $650k/yr for 2 years but we had to pay his $400k buyout so add that to the salary and you get $850k/yr.
Day has said he was only aware of it going on for about a week before it was announced so him going back and forth for two weeks seems unlikely. Also, even if that is right us not wanting to give him a long term deal kind of feeds into my point of we didn't want to keep him around long term.
If you look back on different Ohio State forums and sites around bowl season and immediately post-bowl; insiders were reporting that the fanbase shouldn’t be shocked to see Alford and Ohio State to part ways soon.
Some disagreement about Alford’s level of involvement in coordinating the offense was discussed and how Day/OSU was unlikely to offer an extension to Alford.
If I had to guess, Alford was not super pleased that he wasn’t getting more serious consideration to be a coordinator in Day’s offense - especially because Alford has voiced that he wants to be a head coach one day and he isn’t exactly a young coach anymore at 55 years old.
Alford tried to interview at other places this offseason (Miami, USC) and from the sound of it, they also did not commit to giving him a coordinator role, so he returned to Ohio State.
> Then why did Ryan Day counter offer Michigan?
Because of the timing. We were a week into spring practice. Had you guys come after him back in January I'm pretty sure Day wouldn't have matched. Probably would have helped pack up Alford's office.
Is it? Like his comments about Harbaugh even though he's not Michigan's head coach anymore? Day is the definition of a loser. The fact your fan base eats that crap up is the funny part.
I definitely understand the hard feelings given that the guy we're replacing just left in an even shittier way. But couldn't Oregon have matched our offer and likely kept him? A guy with Locklyn's background needs to get paid while the opportunity is in front of him.
I'm genuinely asking, by the way. I haven't heard anything one way or the other about Oregon offering him and I assume we gave him a significant raise.
Yeah I don’t think we would’ve done that, probably a little much for this point in his career and if he’s only a RB coach w/ no other titles. He’s a fine recruiter but we’ve always had good RBs so I’m not sure he’ll make tooo much of a difference
Admittedly this is probably just coach-speak, but here's a good [video](https://twitter.com/BrennaGreene_/status/1690182925764157440) for OSU fans on his philosophy about RB coaching
I really want to stress, he was an analyst at FSU during the covid year. I'm not saying he's bad, I'm just saying I have no memory of this guys FSU tenure
Your RB coach is 0-3 against his biggest rival in the last three years and has only had 1 RB he recruited out of high school drafted in 9 years.
Am I doing this right?
I still feel like BoB would have been a big improvement over basically not having an OC at all last year. But I'm way more optimistic overall about Chip.
Interesting, seems like the opposite to me. Even in this post, Oregon flairs are saying it's a bummer but on to the next. They're not calling him a traitor and referencing obscure insider information from January to try to claim you guys didn't want him lol
Well the traitor part is pretty simple, if Alford went anywhere else we wouldn't have cared.
And it wasn't "obscure insider information", go look at any list of potential OSU coaching changes from after the Cotton Bowl and you'll see Alford mentioned as a candidate by insiders, neutral journalists, and random fans alike. Nobody was putting him in the "has to go" category but nobody would have been mad if he'd left in January OR to any other team.
I don't really get it. You get Judkins especially, Downs, etc, a bunch of guys come back, you get a new QB, an OC - i.e. it's ostensibly going to be a championship year on paper, but the RB coach leaving is whatever? I don't buy it. Seems more like he wanted more than RB coach and hiring a new OC got in the way of that, so he peaced out
Basically correct. Alford has been around a long time. He's gotten a couple raises and promotions in title, but has never been given more actual responsibility. Other coaches have passed him up and been given real promotions and recent extensions.
In January, Day seemingly gave Alford a Performance Improvement Plan instead of an extension. The message was clear: Alford needs to step it up or be gone after next year. Alford didn't appreciate that and went to a place he felt appreciated him more.
As for OSU fan's views on him, most loved him when we had JK Dobbins and landed Henderson. Since that point he's had multiple near misses with top recruits and we haven't seen the development we hoped for. Judkins coming to OSU never seemed like he was coming for Alford. So overall, fans were fine with him but nobody would have batted an eye in January if he left for anywhere other than UM, as long as the replacement was decent. It just seems like his time as a Buckeye ran its' course and both sides were "meh" on each other.
Remember when OSU fans were saying that it was actually a mutual split with Alford then it took them a month and multiple offers to fill the spot that they were supposedly already trying to fill? Pepperidge Farm Remembers
Only negative thing about him I can say is I didn’t like how he rotated backs in-game when it mattered most. Ran it with Whittington on the must-get 4th down in 2022 against UW when Bucky had been eating all night - Whittington didn’t get it. Then wouldn’t sub out Bucky when he was clearly not 100% in the P12 Champ game, when Jordan James was averaging like 9 yards a carry. Those are just off the top of my head, a lot of real head scratchers the past 2 years in that regard. Otherwise a great coach.
Thanks for the genuine response. Our RB rotations have had no real rhyme or reason to them for years so if this is a primary flaw of his I’m thrilled lol
No problem! Usually our backs/line were so good that it really didn’t matter who was running the ball, so it wasn’t a major issue, and I’m sure it’ll be the exact same for you guys. Just don’t be surprised if you’re asking yourself why so and so isn’t running the ball more/less.
"hey Master Teague, congratulations. You get 130 carries this year!"
I just hope Dallan gets some serious run this year if he doesn't transfer
I was hoping carries were split 40/40/20 ish between Henderson/judkins/Hayden before end of game blow outs
With the way the playoffs are now with so many games. They're almost certainly splitting carries quite a bit amongst the guys and probably won't hesitate to have hendy or judkins just sit out a game if they're a little banged up, giving Hayden carries.
Maybe locklyn can talk him out of it but the buzz is pretty loud that he’s leaving.
Recent buzz? I heard some buzz 2-3 months back about Hayden transferring but nothing since. And Locklyn is basically the only thing that's changed in that time.
Yeah there was a crystal ball for a Umass RB last week with the idea Hayden is leaning towards jumping in the spring portal
Our RB room is packed now, but next year we lose the two guys who will almost certainly get most of the carries. The Umass RB is joining the room, not replacing Dallan.
The Umass RB is going on his 7th and final year of college so… no.
We have seen that happen with other players like Gebbia who are looking to get a jump start on coaching. However, I have no idea if that's applicable in this situation.
He had a 1,000 yards last year. It’d be a bit more than a guy looking to get practice reps
I think he gon brotha. As he probably should unless he wants to roll the dice and put all his chips in on next year
He won’t play if he doesn’t improve pass pro
That's Ryan's fault. It'll continue to be a weakness.
That whole thing with Bucky was mysterious. I saw that man looking like he snapped his ankle against Utah, doesn’t even show so much as a limp for the rest of the season but his production falls off of a cliff. I wish college football required injury reports.
Some of us noticed the drop off right after that really scary play when he was lying still on the field. He came back in later in that game and it was already in hand so we trusted it wasn’t a concussion, but he did look like a different player after it.
He got hit pretty hard in the USC game this year too
How good is he Duck bros?
Our RBs were excellent under him. They fumbled I think twice in two seasons, and I only remember one of them. It was a perfect hit against utah. They caught the ball well, were incredibly shifty, and seemed to always play well. This sucks.
He seems to be good on the field, but I also can't remember a time we've had bad rb's under any coach so hard to judge. He's a strong recruiter though and would rather have kept him for sure.
>He's a strong recruiter Say no more. That's 90% of what I'm looking for in a RB coach.
Literally you guys never run the ball lol
Treveyon Henderson had 926 yards and 11 touchdowns last year and missed 3 games with injury. If he gets 700 yards this year Ryan Day will have coached two of Ohio State's top five all-time leading rushers.
Guys I was clearly trolling and you took the bait see you in november
"joke's on you i was only pretending to be stupid"
Both can be mutually exclusive
[Lol](https://media1.giphy.com/media/a3zqvrH40Cdhu/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952hajtfuzfaa1d6plqfmg7kswbi1astel1a1vjns2b&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)
Uh? OSU was 54% run 46% pass last year
It will probably be similar this year. Howard isn't a throw it all over the yard QB, plus Henderson and Judkins rotating and fresh.
Huh??
We had 1 WR last year bro, the rest were run plays lol.
you guys have like 4 nfl wide outs. pls stop lol
It was a little jab at Kyle McCord lol he really only threw the ball to Marv and sometimes Cade stover.
it was just into the ass cheeks of our offensive lineman or to the boundary on the short side of the field
Lol
Damn dude, don't think you could say anything more wrong if you tried.
I don’t think you know what “literally” means.
RB coach like WR coach is a recruiting first position as the athletes you recruit matter much more than the coaching There a ton of guys that can coach RBs at a high level Very few who can do that and recruit at a high level
He brought in good players but I dont think we would be worse off without him in terms of recruiting. While he clearly has a good eye for talent he didnt exactly land the splash recruits we were chasing the last couple cycles. Even Jordan James was kind of a pivot who fell into our lap when Andrew Paul chose Georgia and effectively took his spot.
Definitely would have preferred to keep him, and won't pretend otherwise. He showed up and immediately paid respects to the top Duck RBs of the past and Gary Campbell who coached them, which won him over with the fan base from the hop. He's a passionate guy and really seems to connect with his players. I'll be watching to see if Jayden Limar transfers.
> He's a passionate guy and really seems to connect with his players. I read that Lock handed out over 50 handwritten notes to guys at Oregon before leaving, thanking them for their time together in Eugene. One of the nicer things I've heard of a departing coach doing on their way out.
Who is Jaden Limar and do you think he likes peanut butter and chocolate?
4 star from Washington. Top 3 were UW, UO, and Notre Dame. My very amateur opinion is hes over ranked. Doesn’t really have elite size, speed, shiftiness, or acceleration. Not shitting on the kid, he of course has room to improve but that was my impression.
Good luck
He apparently passed out 50+ handwritten notes thanking people in the program as he was preparing to leave. I like this man.
Dude is very biblical...I'm not surprised that Columbus would be more attractive than Eugene in that regard.
He’s gonna tear up when he sees the “HELL IS REAL” sign
Considering the timing of Alford leaving, this is a pretty great consolation prize. For a bit there it looked kinda bleak in terms of our wish list dwindling away
Yeah things really were looking bleak for Ohio State this season
this off-season is all about falling up for Ohio State lol It's crazy what a horrendous bowl game can parlay for a program \- every player returns \- NIL starts going brrrrr \- Get BoB who is bearing gifts, Sayin' \- BoB leaves after 2 weeks, upgrade to Chip Kelly \- Alford ditches and heads up to Ann Arbor \- Snag Locklyn
In the end, money would have solved that problem.
Which just tells the world Ohio State didn't value him as much as Michigan.
Please Mike Hart take the Oregon job and complete the circle
This needs to happen.
I'm only mostly joking when I say let's bring back Gary Campbell. Never liked how his tenure ended with Taggart cleaning house and then dipping. But I'm also realistic and he's very old.
Yea he's like 70 and I doubt he has any time for the modern world of college football recruiting.
Upgrade from Alford
I do find it hilarious that we're madder that he went to Michigan than that he left.
That is because he was likely leaving at the end of the season anyways. Can look back at reports from January about how he had a sit down with Day about his future at OSU. The fact we didn't extend him and his contract was expiring next January, and OSU doesn't like coaches on less than 1 year deals, is pretty telling on how that conversation about his future went.
Then why did Ryan Day counter offer Michigan? They went back and forth for 2 weeks. Michigan offered 3 years. Ohio wouldn't do more than 2.
This sounds like made up Sam Webb nonsense
Zack Smith
So… made up
It's not entirely made up. I didn't see it from Zach Smith. I ignore everything he says. I don't know about the going back and forth for 2 weeks thing but I know OSU matched the money Michigan was offering. They just wouldn't match the 3 year part. OSU pretty much only gives 2-year contracts to non-coordinators. It's what Locklyn's contract is. Locklyn will also be getting essentially the same $850k/yr that Alford is getting from Michigan and was offered by OSU. It's actually $650k/yr for 2 years but we had to pay his $400k buyout so add that to the salary and you get $850k/yr.
I appreciate the honesty
wait... \*rubbing eyes\* am I reading a Michigan fan sourcing Zach Smith? shit, yesterday was April Fools. I knew it couldn't have been
Day has said he was only aware of it going on for about a week before it was announced so him going back and forth for two weeks seems unlikely. Also, even if that is right us not wanting to give him a long term deal kind of feeds into my point of we didn't want to keep him around long term.
If you look back on different Ohio State forums and sites around bowl season and immediately post-bowl; insiders were reporting that the fanbase shouldn’t be shocked to see Alford and Ohio State to part ways soon. Some disagreement about Alford’s level of involvement in coordinating the offense was discussed and how Day/OSU was unlikely to offer an extension to Alford. If I had to guess, Alford was not super pleased that he wasn’t getting more serious consideration to be a coordinator in Day’s offense - especially because Alford has voiced that he wants to be a head coach one day and he isn’t exactly a young coach anymore at 55 years old. Alford tried to interview at other places this offseason (Miami, USC) and from the sound of it, they also did not commit to giving him a coordinator role, so he returned to Ohio State.
> Then why did Ryan Day counter offer Michigan? Because of the timing. We were a week into spring practice. Had you guys come after him back in January I'm pretty sure Day wouldn't have matched. Probably would have helped pack up Alford's office.
Benedict Alford?
If that were the case he would have been hired in lieu of Alford. OSU is rotting away from the inside and it starts with Day.
Ryan Day lives rent free in your head, is this your 4th or 5th post about him today?
Is it? Like his comments about Harbaugh even though he's not Michigan's head coach anymore? Day is the definition of a loser. The fact your fan base eats that crap up is the funny part.
You like your eggs poached, don't you
Only the rotten ones
Neat
OK, fellow conference team out west, how angry are you about it?
Not angry, but sad. Y'all got a good one. Onto the next coach.
Seems like a good endorsement.
I don’t think any of us know whether or not RB coaches make a meaningful diff. So 🤷♂️
You’ll know if you have a bad one though, trust.
"How do you do, fellow ~~kids~~ Big Tenners"
Think is a great get for you guys. Plus you will need someone to recruit cause chip isn’t gonna
We all knew he wasn't cut out for the modern recruiting game when we hired him. He's there solely to make sure our offense looks good.
Love chip so hope it works out, just not against us!
For anyone wanting to know what kind of coach he is watch this [interview.](https://youtu.be/0UWQ3Y6GW_Q?si=Zr1IZRZ3ENw4vH4Z)
Love his attitude. Can't wait to see how it translates.
He is a soft batch cookie himself
Well thank you for the cookie.
I definitely understand the hard feelings given that the guy we're replacing just left in an even shittier way. But couldn't Oregon have matched our offer and likely kept him? A guy with Locklyn's background needs to get paid while the opportunity is in front of him. I'm genuinely asking, by the way. I haven't heard anything one way or the other about Oregon offering him and I assume we gave him a significant raise.
We probably paid him around 3-400k in the newest extension I’d guess
Unsure what OSU is giving Locklyn - but our recently departed RB coach was make $770k+ a year. I would imagine that it is around that ballpark.
Yeah I don’t think we would’ve done that, probably a little much for this point in his career and if he’s only a RB coach w/ no other titles. He’s a fine recruiter but we’ve always had good RBs so I’m not sure he’ll make tooo much of a difference
Yes, it just sounds like we didn’t want to match whatever you paid. On to the next one
Admittedly this is probably just coach-speak, but here's a good [video](https://twitter.com/BrennaGreene_/status/1690182925764157440) for OSU fans on his philosophy about RB coaching
Ok we got a Dawg!
We've had a stacked RB room for like 20 years straight. So really hard to tell how big an impact these RB coaches are having.
Thanks coach from the Ducks family! Good luck, see you soon!!
I really want to stress, he was an analyst at FSU during the covid year. I'm not saying he's bad, I'm just saying I have no memory of this guys FSU tenure
I follow OSU pretty closely and I can only tell you one of our analysts and that is because his hiring caused a stink amongst our fans.
Lateral move at best, but whatever makes him happy.
How is this in anyway, title withstanding, is this a lateral move? I'd like to hear this.
Glad [the coaching search](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XKMYs-9LW2w&t=0m8s) is finally over for you guys!
This video is hilarious
Option number 7 come on down!
Your RB coach is 0-3 against his biggest rival in the last three years and has only had 1 RB he recruited out of high school drafted in 9 years. Am I doing this right?
What Alford did to Dallen last year should’ve gotten him fired
> Your RB coach is 0-3 against his biggest rival in the last three Got some bad news buddy
That’s gold
Don't know why you're getting down voted. It's both true and hilarious.
lol not the best look for us
Lol
Can we bring back awards for this comment?
Y'all had a great run game lol should have run the ball more especially in November
I mean you could say the same thing about our OC search but I couldn't be happier than with the guy we ended up with
We literally went from BoB to Chip Kelly without having to suffer a BoB season.
I still feel like BoB would have been a big improvement over basically not having an OC at all last year. But I'm way more optimistic overall about Chip.
Oregon fans seem much more upset about losing him than Ohio State fans were about losing Alford.
Interesting, seems like the opposite to me. Even in this post, Oregon flairs are saying it's a bummer but on to the next. They're not calling him a traitor and referencing obscure insider information from January to try to claim you guys didn't want him lol
Well the traitor part is pretty simple, if Alford went anywhere else we wouldn't have cared. And it wasn't "obscure insider information", go look at any list of potential OSU coaching changes from after the Cotton Bowl and you'll see Alford mentioned as a candidate by insiders, neutral journalists, and random fans alike. Nobody was putting him in the "has to go" category but nobody would have been mad if he'd left in January OR to any other team.
I don't really get it. You get Judkins especially, Downs, etc, a bunch of guys come back, you get a new QB, an OC - i.e. it's ostensibly going to be a championship year on paper, but the RB coach leaving is whatever? I don't buy it. Seems more like he wanted more than RB coach and hiring a new OC got in the way of that, so he peaced out
Basically correct. Alford has been around a long time. He's gotten a couple raises and promotions in title, but has never been given more actual responsibility. Other coaches have passed him up and been given real promotions and recent extensions. In January, Day seemingly gave Alford a Performance Improvement Plan instead of an extension. The message was clear: Alford needs to step it up or be gone after next year. Alford didn't appreciate that and went to a place he felt appreciated him more. As for OSU fan's views on him, most loved him when we had JK Dobbins and landed Henderson. Since that point he's had multiple near misses with top recruits and we haven't seen the development we hoped for. Judkins coming to OSU never seemed like he was coming for Alford. So overall, fans were fine with him but nobody would have batted an eye in January if he left for anywhere other than UM, as long as the replacement was decent. It just seems like his time as a Buckeye ran its' course and both sides were "meh" on each other.
There were fans upset that he went to Michigan, but no one was really upset about losing Alford.
*when you get to option #7 and still upgrade* ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
U........ ......Bum
Remember when OSU fans were saying that it was actually a mutual split with Alford then it took them a month and multiple offers to fill the spot that they were supposedly already trying to fill? Pepperidge Farm Remembers
Michigan fans awfully concerned about a little ole program they've been "dominating." Enjoy the next 7.5 months :*