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Former Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer has been named the new head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars. It ends a retirement that lasted just two years and brings forth all kinds of speculation. How long will he last? How successful will he be at the next level? And if you are an OSU fan, will he be bringing anyone from Columbus to his staff in JAX?
When it comes to that latter point, it has some Buckeye fans a little worried. After all, a lot of the assistant coaches still at Ohio State were brought there by Meyer and still have a relationship with him. One of those key figures is head strength and conditioning coach Mickey Marotti, who has been known as Meyer’s right-hand man through stops at Florida and OSU.
He is perhaps the most important figure in the Buckeye football program aside from head coach Ryan Day. A loss of Marotti would be a significant one. And, to put everyone’s nerves at ease, according to the Columbus Dispatch (subscription may be required), sources indicated that Marotti will be staying at Ohio State.
I'd been told Mickey Marotti wouldn't be leaving. Meyer said Mark Pantoni, who leads the OSU recruiting department, wouldn't be joining him in Jacksonville, either.
— Bill Rabinowitz (@brdispatch) January 15, 2021
That is great news when you start discussing some behind the scenes things that go into how and why the OSU program has continually performed at a high level year after year. And for now, it looks like the official titled assistant athletic director for football sports performance isn’t going anywhere.
With that in mind, we still don’t know what Meyer’s staff will look like, but he has gone on record stating that he’s not going to ransack the Ohio State staff.
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