Do Matt Patricia, Arthur Smith give Ohio State the best play-calling duo in college football?

Putting Ohio State's play-callers into context nationally, and within the program's recent history.

Jul 06, 2026

∙ Paid

Ohio State offensive coordinator Arthur Smith is one of 63 new coordinators in the Power Four this year. (Courtesy of OSU football)

COLUMBUS — Does Ohio State have the best coordinator pairing in college football? It’s a question we attempted to tackle last week when we drafted the best coordinator pairings in the Power Four. Here’s how that draft played out:

Indiana: OC Mike Shanahan; DC Bryant Haines (Bill)
Ohio State: OC Arthur Smith; DC Matt Patricia (Doug)
Miami: OC Shannon Dawson; DC Corey Hetherman (Bill)
LSU: OC Charlie Weis Jr.; DC Blake Baker (Doug)
Michigan: OC Jason Beck; DC Jay Hill (Bill)
Penn State: OC Taylor Mouser; DC D’Anton Lynn (Doug)
Florida: OC Buster Faulkner; DC Brad White (Bill)
Notre Dame: OC Mike Denbrock; DC Chris Ash (Doug)
Georgia: OC Mike Bobo; DC Glenn Schumann (Bill)
USC: OC Lincoln Riley; DC Gary Patterson (Doug)

Our conclusion: Probably not right now. It feels like you need to give a tip of the cap to Indiana’s returning coordinators who just won a national title while fielding the No. 2 offense and No. 2 defense in the country, per ESPN’s SP+.

Beyond that, however, it opens up. And Doug and I both agreed that we’d take Ohio State’s pairing of offensive coordinator Smith and defensive coordinator Patricia over the rest of the field, despite Smith being new to Columbus and having not coached in college since he was an intern at Ole Miss in 2010.
That’s at least partly due to change across major college football. There’s been a lot of it. Of the 10 programs we drafted, only Indiana, Miami, Notre Dame and Georgia are running back the same play-caller pairing they had last year. Thanks to the research done by Cody Nagel at CBS Sports, we know that there are 63 new coordinators at the Power Four level, an average of nearly one per team (there are 68 Power Four teams).

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