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Buckeyes player-personnel staffer Weston Zernechel hired by USC

Spencer-Holbrookby:Spencer Holbrook•02/08/22•

SpencerHolbrook

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Ohio State recruiting assistant Weston Zernechel is leaving the program for a job at USC. (Birm/Lettermen Row)

COLUMBUS — Ohio State has talented staff members working behind the scenes to make it one of college football’s elite.

One of those key staffers has found a new spot to help lead a program.

Buckeyes player personnel staffer Weston Zernechel is leaving the Ohio State program to become the new assistant director of player personnel at Southern California, according to a report by ESPN’s Pete Thamel. Zernechel will join Lincoln Riley’s first staff in Los Angeles.

Zernechel, a 2014 Ohio State graduate, has been with the Buckeyes program since 2017 in a recruiting assistant role. He was a team manager for Ohio State for four years in college and worked on Tom Herman’s staff at Houston for a season.

Zernechel isn’t the first member of the Mark Pantoni-led staff to get a job at a different program in a key role, and he won’t be the last. The way the Buckeyes recruit under Pantoni and head coach Ryan Day is often looked at as a standard for recruiting.

So the offseason is time to add to that — and it comes with some losses of those cogs in the system. The Buckeyes are beginning to piece together their offseason plans with some fresh faces in the building, some on the coaching staff and now one will be needed on the recruiting side.

“It’s exciting, this is really our first day kind of all together here in the Woody,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day said last week. “Working together, had our first staff meeting together and we’re looking forward to getting rolling into February.

” … It’s just a new group and a fresh start. New ideas, new perspectives — that’s a good thing, it’s healthy. Especially when you have guys who have been here for five, seven years, the continuity has been great. That’s a big part of our success here. But having new ideas and fresh perspectives is really good. It’s refreshing.”

But the fresh faces also means some losses inside the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.

That’s what happened Tuesday. Weston Zernechel is moving on from Ohio State to join the new staff at USC.

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