\n Matt Patricia is officially staying at Ohio State. <\/p>\n
\n\tThe Ohio State defensive coordinator has agreed to a new contract with Ohio State despite receiving interest for NFL jobs, Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork told The Columbus Dispatch<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n \n\tWhile Patricia never formally interviewed for any NFL jobs this offseason, rumors circulated that multiple NFL teams were interested in Patricia after his successful first season at Ohio State, in\u00a0which the Buckeyes had the best defense in the country. But Bjork said Patricia was \u201calways committed to staying\u201d at Ohio State.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cHe was always committed to staying here,\u201d\u00a0Bjork said. \u201cI know his family loves it. His kids have fit in well.\u00a0… We just kept a constant dialogue before we got to an agreement with him.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tPatricia signed a three-year contract worth $2.5 million per year<\/a>\u00a0when he became Ohio State\u2019s defensive coordinator last offseason. Ohio State has not yet announced the terms of Patricia\u2019s new contract, but it\u2019s anticipated that he will make at least $3 million in a contract that will make him one of college football\u2019s highest-paid defensive coordinators.\n<\/p>\n \n\tIn Patricia\u2019s first year at Ohio State, the Buckeyes\u00a0led the nation in both scoring and total defense. Ohio State held its opponents to just 9.3 points and 219.1 yards per game, the\u00a0best marks for any FBS defense<\/a>\u00a0since Alabama held opponents\u00a0to 8.2 points and 183.6 yards per game in 2011. He was a finalist for the Broyles Award, which honors college football\u2019s assistant coach, though that award ultimately went to Indiana defensive coordinator Bryant Haines after the Hoosiers won the national championship.\n<\/p>\n \n\tIn an interview with Holly Rowe during the Broyles Award ceremony, Patricia described Ohio State as a \u201cspecial place\u201d and spoke fondly about his first season with the Buckeyes. He said he was happy to be back at the collegiate level after two decades in the NFL, including a lengthy tenure as the New England Patriots\u2019 defensive coordinator and a three-year stint as the Detroit Lions\u2019 head coach.\n<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cFor me to come back to college after about 25 years, it was just something that I really wanted to change.\u00a0I wanted to get back to that environment,\u00a0I wanted to get back to teaching and mentoring and helping kids develop,\u201d Patricia said. \u201cJust walking into that room and just being able to be around the kids and see\u00a0that joy, that youthful energy and love for the game of football was just so invigorating to me. It just really brought me back to my roots of why I wanted to coach, and I just loved going in there and\u00a0seeing their faces and watching them want to learn.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\tPatricia successfully replaced eight starters \u2013 all of whom were selected in the NFL draft \u2013 to lead the nation\u2019s best defense in 2025. He\u2019s now tasked with rebuilding the Buckeyes\u2019 defense once again as they replace seven starters from last season:\u00a0defensive end Caden Curry, defensive tackle Kayden McDonald, linebackers Arvell Reese and Sonny Styles, cornerback Davison Igbinosun, nickelback Lorenzo Styles Jr. and safety Caleb Downs.\n<\/p>\n \n\tWith Patricia officially staying in the fold, Ohio State will have two former NFL head coaches as coordinators in 2026. Ryan Day hired former Atlanta Falcons head coach and Pittsburgh Steelers\/Tennessee Titans offensive coordinator Arthur Smith as Ohio State\u2019s new offensive coordinator<\/a> in January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt Patricia is officially staying at Ohio State. The Ohio State defensive coordinator has agreed to a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-486427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}