For the third straight season, Ohio State will open the year under a new offensive coordinator, with Arthur Smith joining the Buckeyes’ staff on Sunday, replacing Brian Hartline, who left for South Florida on December 3, 2025.
The 43-year-old Smith brings a new offensive philosophy to Ohio State, one that signals a shift toward a ground-and-pound NFL attack as Ryan Day looks to finally marry his elite passing concepts with a dominant, consistent rushing game, which Smith accomplished across his NFL career.
Ryan Day’s decision to hire Smith isn’t just about filling a vacancy; it’s a strategic pivot toward the “CEO model” of coaching. By bringing in a veteran with NFL head coaching experience, Day is following the exact blueprint that revitalized his defense.
Last February, the hire of defensive coordinator Matt Patricia was originally met with skepticism, yet the results were undeniable. Patricia, a three-time Super Bowl champion as an assistant coach for the New England Patriots, transformed the Buckeyes into a juggernaut. Under his guidance in 2025, Ohio State boasted the No. 1 defense in the FBS, allowing just 9.3 points per game and 219.1 yards per game.
Now, the offensive-minded Day and Smith will look to improve a Buckeye offense that ranked 26th in the nation in total offense, averaging 422.6 yards per game, 268.2 passing yards per game (21st) and 154.4 rushing yards per game (71st).
Smith’s hire comes on the heels of a 2025 season in which Ohio State’s rushing attack showed inconsistency throughout the year. Known for a run-first approach built on heavy personnel groupings, Smith’s hire represents a direct response to how the Buckeyes’ season ended. Ohio State’s offense stalled and managed just 24 total points in its postseason losses to Indiana in the Big Ten Championship Game and Miami (Fla.) in the College Football Playoff quarterfinal. The Buckeyes totaled a combined 103 rushing yards in the two defeats, as their rushing totals of 45 and 58 yards were both season lows.
Across the last seven years of his NFL career, where he spent time as the offensive coordinator for the Tennessee Titans (2019-20) and the Pittsburgh Steelers (2024-25), as well as the head coach for the Atlanta Falcons (2021-23), Smith consistently helped elevate already strong rushing attacks or overhaul struggling units.
The numbers from Smith’s time in the pros illustrate why he could be the right fit to jumpstart Ohio State’s offense and particularly its rushing attack.
Smith took over as the Titans’ offensive coordinator in 2019 after eight seasons in various assistant coaching positions for Tennessee and quickly orchestrated a rushing attack that became the gold standard of the NFL. In his first season at the helm of the Titans’ offense, Smith, with the help of All-Pro running back Derrick Henry, fostered a unit that ranked No. 3 in the NFL in rush yards per game (138.9), averaged 25.1 points per game (10th) and 362.8 yards per game (12th).
In 2020, those figures dramatically improved as Tennessee averaged a whopping 168.1 yards per game. In that season, Henry became just the eighth player in league history to eclipse the 2,000-yard rushing mark, finishing with 2,027 yards and 17 touchdowns as the Titans ranked fourth in the NFL, averaging 30.7 points per game and third with 396.4 yards per game.
After leading Tennessee to a conference championship game in 2019 and a wild-card appearance in 2020, Smith was hired as Atlanta’s head coach and helped transform a bottom-three rushing offense into one of the NFL’s best, even as the unit struggled to find consistent success overall.
While he finished 7-10 in each of his three seasons with the Falcons, Smith managed to improve an offense that ranked 29th in yards per game (303.8) and 30th in rushing yards per game (85.4) in 2021 to 24th (318.6) and third (159.9) in those respective categories in 2022. Those figures did slightly regress in his final season in 2023 as Atlanta scored 18.9 points per game on average (26th), 334.3 yards per game (17th), 127.0 rush yards per game (9th) and 4.14 rush yards per carry (16th), however in backfields where the lead backs were Mike Davis, Tyler Allgeier and a rookie Bijan Robinson it was still a future telling how much he could do with so little in the run game.
Smith’s most recent work in Pittsburgh further reinforces why Ohio State views him as the right architect to stabilize and elevate its ground game.
Taking over a Steelers offense in 2024 that had cycled through coordinators and quarterbacks, Smith again leaned into his heavy-set units, even as personnel limitations capped Pittsburgh’s ceiling.
The Steelers finished in the top half of the NFL in scoring in each of the past two seasons, placing 16th in points per game in 2024 (22.4) and 15th in 2025 (23.4). That production was enough to reach the playoffs both years, though it fell well short in the moments that mattered most.
Pittsburgh scored just 14 points in a 2024 Wild Card loss to Baltimore and six points in a 2025 Wild Card loss to Houston, with quarterback instability playing a major role. Former Buckeye Justin Fields and Russell Wilson both struggled to sustain success and even the additions of Aaron Rodgers and DK Metcalf in 2025 failed to lift the offense, which finished 22nd in passing yards and 21st in yards per attempt, despite a more pass-heavy approach.
For Ohio State, Smith’s NFL tenure serves as both a cautionary tale and a baseline for what he brings to the table, as his offenses were able to reach the postseason with dominant rushing attacks even with flawed quarterback play. However, the Buckeyes are betting on Smith’s upside, hoping that elite talent in both the pass and run games will allow his run-game foundation to finally reach its ceiling in Columbus.
Image via Charles LeClaire, Imagn Images
