James Laurinaitis reveals the reason he got into coaching

After retiring from the NFL in 2017, James Laurinaitis knew he wanted to stay around the game of football. The former Ohio State linebacker accomplished that by returning to Columbus to host a popular sports radio show, but something in him still wanted more.

That’s when Marcus Freeman, Laurinaitis’ former teammate with the Buckeyes, offered him the opportunity he had been looking for. Freeman became the head coach at Notre Dame this past season and extended a job offer to Laurinaitis as a graduate assistant working with the linebackers. Laurinaitis took him up on it and found exactly what he was looking for.

Now Laurinaitis will again return to Columbus, as he accepted a graduate assistant job with the Buckeyes. Speaking in a recent press conference, Laurainitis talked about his transition to coaching and opened up on what drew him to it in the first place.

“The hours are tough,” he said. “Recruiting is a world that — now being in it for a year — it’s a 24/7 deal. It takes up a lot of your time, but if you’re organized, you can get a lot done and still be a big family person.

“I think coaching for me is you’re impacting young people in the game that you love. I’ve played this game since I was in fourth grade. I’ve loved playing it. It’s been a deep passion of mine. I loved being still around the game when I was doing media. It was just close enough to get the juices flowing. I had to find out whether I wanted to (coach). So I just took an opportunity and I’m thankful to Marcus for giving me that opportunity and trusting me to put in that work.”

After starring at Ohio State from 2005-08, James Laurinaitis was a second-round pick in the 2009 NFL Draft. He played seven seasons for the Rams and one with the Saints, recording 871 tackles, 16.5 sacks and nine fumble recoveries across his career.

When Laurinaitis got into coaching this past season, it took him some time to figure out his approach. Being in the NFL for eight seasons had caused him to overestimate how much knowledge college players regarding various concepts. As a result, it was a learning process for him to discover how to coach them.

“You learn a lot about yourself in the last year,” Laurinaitis said. “When you don’t have a template for how you want to teach, you’ve really got to start from scratch. Like, ‘All right, how do I want to teach these guys the position?’

“Last time I had talked ball in a locker room setting was when I was with the New Orleans Saints. So the level of which you can talk football and route concepts and alignments and all that, you have to kind of — you forget what they don’t know. Then each kid’s different. You have to teach Player A and Player B maybe completely differently. So I learned a lot about myself as a teacher. Then by the time fall came around, I felt like I was in a good rhythm.”

Notre Dame finished 22nd in total defense last season and tied for 13th with 38 sacks as a team. As for the Buckeyes, they were 14th in total defense and 33rd in sacks with 34.