Why Kerry Coombs is returning to Ohio State football’s defensive backs room at the perfect time

OSU

Kerry Coombs' returns to Ohio State football and to a defensive backs room filled with players he's already familiar with. (Marvin Fong, The Plain Dealer)

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The Ohio State football program couldn’t have found a better way to fill the void left in the defensive backs room.

The Buckeyes lost three of their four starters in the secondary to go along with the exit of co-defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley, who is now the head coach at Boston College. The one positive was Shaun Wade choosing to return for his redshirt junior season.

Then Ohio State went out and brought back the man responsible for Wade being a Buckeye in the first place along with many others on the roster. That includes freshman Lejond Cavazos, who, as an early enrollee, hasn’t been on campus long. But his relationship with Kerry Coombs goes back longer than with any other member of Ohio State’s coaching staff, including head coach Ryan Day.

"I was definitely really excited because knowing that I met him my freshman year because he was the first person to originally offer me from here," Cavazos said. "Knowing that he was coming back, it was definitely a big blessing. I had a feeling that something good was going to happen anyway, so just know that he was coming back, that was a good thing for me."

Cavazos’ journey to Columbus has been filled with many chapters that include a long list of people he’s built relationships with inside his position room since Coombs’ departure following the 2017 season. Urban Meyer was the top reason he chose Ohio State, and Meyer’s departure as coach was also the reason he was decommitted at this point last season. The combination of Day and Hafley brought him back into the class for good, but Cavazos will never play for Hafley.

Neither will fellow early enrollee Ryan Watts, who committed because of his relationship with Hafley. But it hasn’t taken him long to get comfortable with Coombs, mostly because he’s lived up to everything other Buckeyes told Watts about him.

"They say that he's fiery, energetic and a lot of excitement about him," Watts said. "Everybody on social media would say they'd run through a brick wall for him. That's really how you feel in practice because he brings in that intensity. He's really the one that's talking in meetings, so it really pumps you up a lot."

Coombs’ familiarity with the roster will make for a smooth transition, which will crucial for the defensive backs room. When Hafley arrived last January, it was pretty clear who the starters were going to be regardless of the assistant coach. Damon Arnette was the returning fifth-year senior with plenty of experience and even more to prove. Jeffrey Okudah was the five-star recruit coming into his own as a potential top-five draft pick. Wade was the talented third-year player who could’ve easily declared following his production last season if he wanted to.

Now Wade is the only sure thing as the No. 1 corner while the other three spots are up for grabs. Having a guy who already has an idea of what he’s dealing with will make for a more productive spring than if Day had brought someone who needed to start at step one in getting to know his players.

"I think that the players have confidence because we have a relationship," Coombs said. "You can't coach without a relationship."

Coombs spent a good amount of his January, after the Tennessee Titans’ season came to an end in the AFC Championship game, trying to complete the Buckeyes’ 2020 recruiting class by getting to know Cameron Martinez. He and Watts are two of the shortlist of people who didn’t have a relationship with Coombs before the past month. But many of the upperclassmen knew him well, making their first meeting more of a reunion than an introduction.

"I've known Sevyn Banks for a long time," Coombs said. "(With) Shaun Wade, it was like going home. We can sit down and talk about anything. Amir Riep, for crying out loud. Marcus Williamson. So there's a lot of guys that are here in the back end that I know really well."

Coombs would go on to name other players he had a hand in recruiting outside of the defensive backs room such as Tuf Borland, Justin Hilliard and Jonathon Cooper.

“Most of the roster I know, because we might have recruited them and they signed after we left, or they started the next year,” Coombs said. “I love the new guys. So yeah, I think there’s a greater comfort level than if I was coming in cold and I didn’t know them and they didn’t know me.”

When Day hired Corey Dennis to replace Mike Yurcich as OSU’s quarterbacks coach, he cited having continuity as one of the main reasons. With Coombs, he got the same thing along with years of experience in a coach who has a proven track record in developing first-round NFL Draft picks. Day didn’t expect to lose one of his first hires as a head coach after just one year, especially in a room where he was already going to lose so many significant players from. But the trade-off is that it brought back Coombs, who returns after just two years in the NFL.

The defensive backs are one of the position rooms with more questions than answers going into the spring.

Ohio State has a new voice in the room for a third straight season, but this time it won’t have to worry about players having to get to know the coach they’ll be learning from.

“At Ohio State, you have to look at it as ‘go get the best, but get the right fit,’ ” Day said. “When you look at what Kerry’s background is, it was the right fit for us.”


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