New Ohio State coach kicks off tenure with many new faces

COLUMBUS >> Ohio State has a new head coach, a reconstituted offensive line and a transfer quarterback who has never started a college football game. But that doesn’t mean expectations will be adjusted for a team that went 86-9 in the past seven seasons under Urban Meyer.

Former Meyer assistant Ryan Day began his inaugural season running the show on March 6 when he convened the first of 15 spring practices he hopes will give him a better idea of what he has to work with. The workouts will culminate in the annual spring game, set for April 13.

“During the offseason, I think a lot of guys stepped up as leaders,” said Day, who got a taste of the job as a stand-in last season while Meyer served a three-game suspension. “But now we’re in kind of onto a new phase now, which is spring practice, and during that we have to find out who the guys are we can count on, because we did lose a lot of guys.”

Besides a raft of new assistant coaches, there are other seismic changes. Gone is quarterback Dwayne Haskins Jr., who is expected to be a first-round NFL draft pick after a record-breaking season that took him to New York as a Heisman Trophy finalist.

Justin Fields, a sophomore transfer from Georgia, is the likely starter at quarterback after Tate Martell transferred to Miami. One of the top prep recruits in the nation in 2018, Fields played sparingly behind Jake Fromm at Georgia last season.

“It was good to get out there and kind of feel what this (quarterback) group can handle, who are they, what’s their identity going to be,” said Day, who was Meyer’s quarterbacks coach for two seasons. “Day 1, so it’s hard to tell, but it’s not going to be the same. Two years ago with J.T. (Barrett) at quarterback and the guys we had, that was a different feel. Last year was a different feel, so it’s exciting to see what this is going to be like.”

Fields said last month that transferring to Ohio State was a practical matter.

“I made more of a business decision, and Coach Day, he’s been in the NFL so he knows what it takes to get there,” Fields said. “Just the offense and how successful it was last year, I just hope to do the same thing again.”