A month and a half after his official hiring as Ohio State’s permanent replacement for Jim Tressel, Urban Meyer has officially completed his first Buckeyes coaching staff.
In a release, OSU confirmed previous reports that Meyer has added a pair of 2011 Notre Dame assistants -- Ed Warinner and Tim Hinton. The former will serve as the co-offensive coordinator/offensive line coach, while the latter will be the tight ends/fullbacks coach.
“I was very pleased with the coaches already in place on this staff,” Meyer said in a statement, “and now we’ve gotten even better with the additions of Ed Warinner and Tim Hinton. Both are excellent coaches who bring a tremendous amount of experience and knowledge to our staff.”
Meyer had previously announced the hiring of ex-Iowa State offensive coordinator Tom Herman for the same job with the Buckeyes. While Warinner will have the co-coordinator title, he will be charged with coordinating the running game. Herman’s expected to be the game-day play-caller.
Prior to joining the Irish, Warinner served as Mark Mangino’s coordinator at Kansas.
“I really wanted to hire a coach with coordinator experience,” Meyer said. “That was very important to me. Ed has that experience. His offenses at Kansas were not only impressive, but they were some of the top offenses in the country.”
Hinton, who served as a grad assistant under Earle Bruce in the mid-80s, has also been an assistant on staffs at Cincinnati and Ohio University.
“Tim is an awesome coach,” Meyer said. “He and I worked together on the Ohio State staff in 1986, but what I am most impressed with is his time spent as a high school coach in Ohio. He had some outstanding teams at Harding and his extensive experiences coaching in the state were crucial in my desire to want him on our staff.”
In addition to Warinner and Hinton, Meyer announced one additional hire: himself. As he has in the past, Meyer confirmed that he will be in charge of special teams.