Before a game this season in which defensive coordinator Matt Patricia’s unit likely had yet another dominant performance, the first-year assistant coach looked in the mirror and noticed something different about himself.
“I walk in the locker room, and I’m looking in the mirror, and I’m like, ‘What’s wrong with my beard?’ ” the 51-year-old Patricia said. “I look like I’m about 30 (years old) on one side and like where I am right now on the other side.”
It didn’t take long for Patricia to realize that this look in the mirror came shortly after one of his big hugs with junior defensive tackle Kayden McDonald, who is having a breakout season with Patricia leading him.
“(McDonald) liked to put a lot of (eye black) on his face before the games. I give him a good ole bear hug before the game,” Patricia said. “(One side of my beard) is black, and the other is all gray. K-Mac, he hugged me and all the stuff came off, so it looked like I dyed my beard.”
The pregame and postgame hugs between Patricia and McDonald are a weekly occurrence and have been nearly all season.
It was no surprise to Patricia that he had gotten McDonald’s eye black in his beard, because the 6-3, 326-pound nose guard requires the coach to get in close.
“He’s a big guy. So if you don’t go in there nice and big, you’re going to be in a
lot of trouble,” Patricia said. “You’ve got to swell up a little bit there.”
It seems obvious now that Patricia was the best-case scenario hire for Ohio State. He has been able to build that type of relationship with many players, all while coaching the Buckeyes to the No. 1 scoring defense and total defense in the country.
But when Patricia was hired, there were many more skeptics than there were believers.
After his stint as the head coach of the Detroit Lions didn’t go well and he was fired, the hiring of Patricia to be the defensive coordinator at Ohio State was met with a lot of skepticism for many reasons.
For one, he hadn’t been involved in the college game since he was a graduate assistant at Syracuse from 2001-03. He moved from there to coach with the New England Patriots as an assistant offensive line coach and remained in the NFL in some role through the 2023 season.
There was also the fact that when he was with the Lions, he had an approach toward his players that Carlos Monarrez of the Detroit Free Press described in 2020 as “caustic critique.” While it is said that approach changed, in the college game, where coaches are required to be mentors to their players who are likely away from home for the first time, there was still skepticism around his ability to build relationships with the players.
But in his first media appearance since making the hire, head coach Ryan Day was confident that wouldn’t be an issue.
“We were very thorough in how we went about the process,” Day said. “When you guys get around Matt, you’ll see his personality. You’ll see the way he is. You’ll see what type of family man he is, dad and husband he is.”
While Day might have foreseen the hire going well because of that, senior captain linebacker Sonny Styles admitted that the players didn’t know what they were in for with Matt Patricia, the person.
“I don’t think any of us questioned how good of a coach he was and how well he would do calling plays and things like that,” Styles said. “But the thing that we weren’t aware of was the kind of person he was.”
Patricia’s players have been nothing but pleasantly surprised by the man who was hired to coach them.
“He’s an amazing person,” Styles continued. “As soon as he came here, he wanted to be a mentor, a role model, and it was always bigger than football to him, and the relationship always felt genuine. He genuinely cares about us like we’re his own kids.”
McDonald and junior defensive end Kenyatta Jackson Jr. echoed that sentiment when asked about Patricia.
“He’s a good guy. When he first stepped on campus here, it was like a long-lost family member that just came back home,” Jackson said. “All of the guys love him, even offensive guys. He’s just a family guy. He doesn’t just talk to the starters or whatever the case may be, but he talks to everybody. I think that’s why everyone loves him.”
“He knows how to talk to his players, and he has a very good personality,” McDonald said. “He’s definitely been there before. He’s been in a bad time, so he knows what it looks like. Him being the coach for us has been nothing but a blessing.”
Nowadays, it’s rare to see Patricia in the football facility or on the sideline without a smile stretched across his face, unless he’s in the play sheet.
Asked specifically about his relationship with McDonald, Patricia dove into his connection with the lineman, first talking about the junior’s personal traits before getting into his football acumen.
“I’m just super appreciative to be around all these guys,” Patricia said. “I said before, they’re great young men. I have so much joy when I walk in the room and see all of them. And K-Mac is no different. He’s got a huge smile, and he’s a big grizzly bear, and I can’t wait to give him a big ole hug.
“I just get so excited to see him really develop and grow. And he’s super coachable. He wants to learn. He wants to get better. And to watch him light up when something you talk about and install and watch that happen on the field and watch him have that success, I mean, that’s the joy of coaching. And that is really what has been so fun for me this year, I guess in the selfish part of it.”
As previously mentioned, McDonald, a first-year starter, has been having a great season. He’s one of three players on the roster to be named a unanimous All-American, along with safety Caleb Downs and wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, and Patricia has had a lot of fun watching McDonald rise to the occasion.
“My joy of just watching these kids be able to accomplish the things they have worked so hard to do, I get very excited for them to be able to do all that stuff,” he said. “And it is a special relationship. He’s a great young man. Just want nothing but the best for him every time we see him.”
McDonald remembers before the season when it wasn’t a sure thing that he would reach his potential with the Buckeyes, going to Patricia and hoping the coordinator would be able to help him reach the goals he had.
“I’m really close to him,” McDonald said. “Coach Patricia, he took me in in the summer. I sat with him and went through the goals I had this year. Every step of the way, he was in my ear. Even when I have a bad day or a good day, he always told me to keep working and keep going.”
Now projected as a late first-round selection in the 2026 NFL draft, McDonald has reached many of those goals with the hope of a back-to-back national championship still in his mind.
“I tell (the players) all the time, it’s such a privilege to be up there in front of the group and talk to them,” Patricia said. “It’s such a joy to watch them play on Saturdays and watch how they put a week of work together.
“And for me, personally, it has been so much fun to come back to college and have that little bit of youthful energy with the players that we have here and their excitement to go out and play. The camaraderie and the bond they have and the brotherhood they have formed, it’s been a lot of fun to watch.”
