A few thoughts as Brian Hartline appears to be headed to Tampa to be the new head coach at USF.

1) I think Brian had the opportunity to be extremely selective as he considered his next steps professionally. His name has been floated around for several years now for different job openings - when you're the best recruiter in the country and you're the offensive coordinator at Ohio State, that's just the nature of the beast. He wasn't going to leave Columbus for just any job.

2) I'm not intimately familiar with all of the individual relationship that he has in South Florida, but given his success recruiting guys from South Florida Express and after playing for the Dolphins, I have to imagine there was some real appeal to this job. Alex Golesh (by all accounts) left that program in really good shape and I would bet Brian will be in a position to keep growing.

3) Personally, I love the way Ohio State handled this whole thing. Today is obviously a huge day for college football programs with kids signing NLI's. The college football calendar is broken and it isn't Brian's fault that this job opened when it did. But I'm also sure he was able to reach out to the kids that he had recruited to come be Buckeyes and tell them what he was going to do before the news became public this morning. That put everyone in a better position with the transparency that 18 year old kids and their families deserve when they're making life-changing decisions like this. Prime example of why Ohio State fans should feel fine - Chris Henry Jr. is still signing with the Bucks. The world isn't crashing down just because Hartline is leaving. Ohio State remains an NFL factory and the Buckeyes have had elite receivers for basically 3 decades.

4) Ohio State is bigger than any one player or coach. The Buckeyes will be fine. Losing Hartline will sting a little for sure, but I think Buckeye nation should be genuinely grateful for what Brian poured into his alma mater. I would imagine the parting message from Ryan Day would be something like "thanks for everything you've done here and go be great." I'm glad Brian will be able to finish the season here and try to go win back-to-back natty's with this team.

5) I would argue that being a coordinator at Ohio State is more appealing than all but a handful of head coaching jobs around the country. Ryan Day can pick literally anyone he wants for this job, extremely few people wouldn't entertain the idea. Is Chip Kelly the right fit to come back? Seems logical, but it's Ryan's job to pick the best person for the job. Perhaps there's an even better fit. Regardless of who the new OC will be, I don't expect Ohio State to skip a beat here.