Before Matt Patricia was calling defensive plays for Ohio State, he was sitting at home watching college football on television.
The 2024 season was Patricia’s first away from coaching since he entered the profession. After more than two decades in the NFL, the three time Super Bowl champion took a step back from the sideline for the first time. He didn’t have a job in football. He didn’t have a title.
What he did have was time. And that time changed everything.
A New Perspective
Patricia spent much of that year evaluating the football landscape. He watched how the college game was evolving, and what caught his attention most was the expanded College Football Playoff. The format mirrored what he had always loved about the NFL postseason: survive and advance, with a real shot at a championship for any team that gets in.
“I thought studying it that college football just felt like it was where I wanted to be,” Patricia said. “It kind of just called to me.”
The parallels didn’t stop at the playoff structure. NIL, the transfer portal, and the overall professionalization of college football made the environment feel increasingly familiar to someone who had spent his entire career in pro football.
“Studying it in the offseason, college football to me really felt like, ‘Hey, that’s where I want to be,'” Patricia said. The changes happening in the sport aligned with the competitive, fast-moving environment he had thrived in for years.
Reconnecting With His “Why”
But the structural changes weren’t what ultimately pulled Patricia back to coaching. It was something more fundamental.
During the Broyles Award ceremony, Patricia spoke candidly about what the year off had revealed to him.
“For me to come back to college after about 25 years, it was just something that I really wanted to change,” Patricia said. “I wanted to get back to that environment, I wanted to get back to teaching and mentoring and helping kids develop.”
He described walking into Ohio State’s meeting room for the first time and being struck by the energy of the players.
“Just being able to be around the kids and see that 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 seeing their faces and watching them want to learn.”
That sentiment carried through the entire season. When Patricia addressed reporters during spring practice, he described himself not as the expert in the room, but as someone still learning.
“I just want to teach,” Patricia said. “I want to mentor, but really, right now, I’ve got to learn. I’ve got to listen. Right now, I feel like I’m the student.”
From Reflection to Results
That humility, born from a year of reflection, shaped Patricia’s entire approach to his first season. It informed how he built relationships with the existing coaching staff. It guided how he connected with players. And it influenced how he introduced his system without disrupting the culture Day had established.
The results speak for themselves. No. 1 scoring defense. No. 1 total defense. A Broyles Award nomination. Four potential first-round draft picks developed in a single season.
Patricia’s journey back to coaching wasn’t a straight line. It took a year away from the game to recognize what he wanted to get back to. And it took the right opportunity at the right program to make it happen.
“That year off really gave me a good chance to kind of look at the whole landscape of football,” Patricia reflected. “When you’re kind of just in that grind and you’re going all the time and you’re playing a lot of games, the season goes late, you just go in that next mode. And for me, it was a great opportunity to kind of step back and say, ‘OK, what’s changed?'”
What changed was Matt Patricia’s perspective. And Ohio State is the direct beneficiary.
