Buckeyes reportedly hire Marcus Johnson, Charlie Dickey to work with offensive line
COLUMBUS — Ohio State is reportedly bringing in reinforcements to help with newly-hired offensive line coach Tyler Bowen.
The Buckeyes are adding veteran offensive line coaches Marcus Johnson and Charlie Dickey to their coaching staff to help with the offensive line, according to On3’s Pete Nakos.
Bowen was hired by the Buckeyes on Feb. 5.
Johnson, 43, is a Mississippi native and former offensive lineman for Ole Miss. He was a second-round pick in 2005, playing five seasons in the NFL for the Minnesota Vikings, Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He went on to become an offensive line coach, starting his career with Duke as a strength and conditioning coach and then as an analyst. He was Duke’s offensive line coach in 2016 and 17 before heading to Mississippi State as its offensive line coach in 2018 and 2019. From there, he was the Missouri offensive line coach for three seasons — then becoming the Purdue offensive line coach under head coach Ryan Walters for the last two seasons at Purdue.
Dickey was the Northern Arizona offensive line coach from 1990-91 before taking the offensive line coaching job at Arizona from 1992 to 2002. He was the Wildcats’ tight ends coach from 2003 before becoming the Washington offensive line coach in 2004. He moved on to become the offensive line coach at Utah from 2005 to 2008, the Kansas State offensive line coach from 2009 until 2018 and was most recently the offensive line coach at Oklahoma State.
Both Dickey and Johnson are expected to help Bowen, who hasn’t been an offensive line coach since 2017.
According to CBS Sports’ Matt Zenitz, Ohio State is also hiring Wendy Laurent to the staff. Laurent is a former Penn State offensive lineman who has been the associate head coach and tight ends coach at Dartmouth. He was a former graduate assistant on staff at Penn State in 2020 and 2021, when Bowen was at Penn State.
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Bowen began his career at Maryland as a student assistant in 2010. He became a graduate assistant for the Terrapins in 2011-2012 before becoming the tight ends coach at Towson for one season. From there, he was hired to James Franklin’s Penn State staff in 2014. At Penn State, Bowen served as a graduate assistant in 2014.
Following one season in State College, he became the offensive line coach and offensive coordinator at Fordham for two seasons before going back to Maryland as the Terps’ offensive line coach in 2017 — then he went back to Penn State, where he was the tight ends coach and offensive recruiting coordinator in 2018 and 2019. He served as the co-offensive coordinator, offensive recruiting coordinator and tight ends coach for Penn State in 2020 before he was hired to Urban Meyer’s 2021 Jacksonville Jaguars staff as the tight ends coach. After one season in the NFL, Bowen became the offensive coordinator & tight ends coach for Virginia Tech in 2022.
For the last two seasons, he was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Virginia Tech, serving as the Hokies’ run-game coordinator.
Now as he transitions to a role as the Ohio State offensive line coach, Bowen will have two veteran offensive line coaches to assist him. Charlie Dickey and Marcus Johnson are joining the Ohio State coaching staff. Laurent is reportedly joining, too.
