Kyle McCord shares excitement over Ohio State's offensive coordinator change
Ohio State quarterback Kyle McCord was all for the offensive coordinator change to Brian Hartline ahead of the 2023 season.
Amid a quarterback battle with the Buckeyes, McCord wasn’t fazed by having a new assistant coach at the top of the staff. In fact, it was nearly a seamless transition.
At this point McCord is not the starter, but he certainly sounds like a veteran when he discusses Hartline’s role.
“Yeah, I think Coach Hart stepped into that role seamlessly,” McCord said. “You know, he sees the game from a really good perspective. I think, you know, it’s a testament to his time playing and now being a coach. He sees all 11 guys. Sometimes with a receivers coach you would think, you know, he only knows the passing game you know, he doesn’t know the run game, doesn’t have the protections, but he understands all that fully. And I think, you know, he stepped up to the role and hit it out of the park.
“We put in some new stuff that worked really well that we’ll use going into the fall. But I mean, in terms of just from a quarterback perspective, I mean, it’s been kind of consistent Coach Day. So having that consistency. You know, it’s kind of helped me through that transition. But you know, honestly, it wasn’t a crazy transition or anything like that.”
Right now, Ryan Day is no closer to naming a starter, but saw some good things to wrap up spring. Perhaps McCord working with Hartline even more helps the entire offense.
“I think what you saw in the game was similar to what you’ve seen in practice, some good things, some things that you’d like to see a little bit better,” Day said. “But (Kyle is) growing. I think that the picture sometimes was clean, other times not as clean. I think when Marvin (Harrison Jr.) only played a couple of drives there and then he was out and certainly not having Emeka (Egbuka) and Julian (Fleming affected things). You saw there were some sparks. I thought the throw to Carnell (Tate) was an excellent one.
“But, you know, there’s stuff that he wants to improve on. So we’ll get on to film and figure out what that was and some of it’s hard out there because there’s so much going on, and it’s going fast because you’re calling it back and forth. So you know, overall 15 practices and there was improvement there.”
As a member of the Class of 2021, McCord was a five-star recruit out of Philadelphia (Pa.) St. Joseph’s, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies. He was the No. 2 overall prospect in the state, the No. 5 quarterback in the class and the No. 25 quarterback in the class.