COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio State Buckeyes went back to a familiar face from the past to fill the void on the football coaching staff left by Kerry Coombs when he took a coaching job with the Tennessee Titans. The Buckeyes are bringing Taver Johnson back to the staff to fill Ohio State's assistant coaching roster out at its full complement of 10 assistants. Johnson will work with the cornerbacks but additional responsibilities may be announced at a later date.
Johnson was most recently the defensive coordinator at Temple University, a position that he held for one season after spending the previous three seasons at Purdue as the defensive backs coach for the Boilermakers.
Johnson spent five seasons with the Buckeyes under Jim Tressel and was one of the coaches retained by Urban Meyer when he took over the head coaching position of the Buckeyes. Johnson would leave the Buckeyes to join former Ohio State assistant coach Paul Haynes (served as Defensive Coordinator) at Arkansas on the defensive side of the ball.
During Johnson's time with the Buckeyes as the cornerbacks coach, Johnson oversaw and developed players like Malcolm Jenkins, Kurt Coleman and Chimdi Chekwa. All three of those players would go on to be All-Americans with the Buckeyes.
“I am really pleased to have Taver Johnson join our coaching staff,” Meyer said via press release. “I’ve known Taver for a long time, going back to our days at Notre Dame, and I think he is a terrific coach and person. He’ll do an excellent job coaching our cornerbacks and mentoring the young men in our program.”
Johnson will join a defensive staff that has a second new addition in Alex Grinch, the former Washington State defensive coordinator. Meyer has added a pair of former defensive coordinators in the offseason to join Greg Schiano, who had been rumored to be off to the NFL and the New England Patriots before shooting those rumors down around National Signing Day. It remains to be seen just exactly how the defensive duties will be split even though it is known at this point that Taver Johnson will be working with the corners, a position that has flourished in recent years under Coombs in sending player after player to high-round draft positions in the NFL Draft.
Johnson is an Ohio native, born in Cincinnati and played his college football at Wittenberg. Johnson's ties to the Queen City are a plus with the departure of Coombs who spent many years in Cincinnati both as the head coach of Colerain high school and with the University of Cincinnati.
We will have more on this breaking news including what kind of impact that Johnson will have within the Ohio State coaching staff coming soon.
