Ohio State football rumors: Meyer Adds Two Veterans to Complete Coaching Staff

Ohio natives Ed Warinner and Tim Hinton have a combined 58 years of coaching experience

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COLUMBUS, Ohio – Urban Meyer has his Ohio State coaching staff assembled. Today, Meyer announced the addition to his staff of two veteran collegiate coaches who have a combined 58 years of coaching experience: Ed Warinner will coordinate the running game as the team’s co-offensive coordinator/offensive line coach, and Tim Hinton will be the tight ends and fullbacks coach. Both coaches were at the University of Notre Dame the past two seasons under coach Brian Kelly.

“I was very pleased with the coaches already in place on this staff,” Meyer said, “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.”

Warinner, the offensive line coach the past two years at Notre Dame and who had the added responsibility of run game coordinator this past season, will coach his 29th collegiate season in 2012. He was a finalist this past season for the FootballScoop Offensive Line Coach of the Year. He has nine years of experience in a coordinator position, including three years as offensive coordinator at Kansas when the Jayhawks averaged 445.5 total yards per game and 35.3 points during that three-year period.

“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, running backs coach during his two years at Notre Dame, will be in his 17th collegiate coaching season next year and his 31st year of coaching overall. His coaching resume includes 11 highly successful seasons as the head coach at Harding High School in Marion, Ohio. He led Harding to five state playoff berths and five conference titles and he was the 1995 Ohio Division I co-Coach of the Year.

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“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.”

Both coaches are Ohio natives who have also recruited the state for many years. Warinner is from Strasburg and has a bachelor’s degree in physical education from Mount Union (1984) and a master’s in education from Akron (1985). Hinton is from Amanda. He is a 1982 graduate of Wilmington College with a degree in industrial education and he has a master’s degree in educational policy and leadership from Ohio State (1987).

Ed Warinner – Co-Offensive Coordinator/Offensive Line

Warinner, who is 50, has coached at seven different schools: Akron, Michigan State, Army, Air Force, Kansas, Illinois and Notre Dame. In addition to his nine years in coordinator positions, he has spent 15 of the past 20 seasons coaching the offensive line. He has coached on teams that have won four national rushing titles, and earlier this season Rivals.com named Warinner one of the Top 20 “hottest assistant coaches” in the nation.

“I’ve always strived to coach in positions where I have a lot of responsibility,” Warinner said. “Serving as a coordinator goes beyond just coaching what my guys are doing. It is a thought process of attacking and moving the ball, and strategies and reading plays. There is a big picture as a coordinator that I am into and really enjoy, and it’s a position from where I think I can make a significant contribution to the success of a team.”

After opening his coaching career in 1984 at Akron (running backs), Warinner was linebackers and secondary coach at Michigan State in 1985-86.

Then came a 13-year run at Army, a period when he coached along the offensive line for seven years and became a coordinator – offensive – for the first time (1998-99). While Warinner was at Army the Cadets led the nation in rushing three times.

He left Army to join Fisher DeBerry’s staff at Air Force. He spent three years there as the offensive line coach and the Falcons led the nation in rushing in 2002 (307.8 yards per game).

The first of two terms at Kansas – 2003-04 – ensued for Warinner, working as offensive line coach/run game coordinator, before a two-year run with Illinois in the same capacity. In his second season with the Illini, his rushing attack netted 188.3 yards per game which was the best by an Illinois team since 1973.

Warinner’s talents as an offensive coordinator then took center stage from 2007-09 while at Kansas. The Jayhawks posted the three best offenses in terms of total yards and passing yards in those years and also had three of the top seven scoring seasons in school history as well.

His 2007 Jayhawks were the nation’s second-highest scoring team (42.8 points per game) and set a school record by averaging 479.8 yards per game, two huge reasons that Kansas went 12-1 that year with a 24-21 FedEx Orange Bowl victory over Virginia Tech.

The 2008 Jayhawks averaged 432.4 yards and 33.4 points per game, respectively, and his final Jayhawk offense averaged 422.4 offensive yards, including a school-record 310.3 passing yards. Warinner was a finalist for the American Football Coaches Association’s National Assistant Coach of the Year award following the 2009 campaign.

He then joined Kelly’s staff at Notre Dame, where he helped the Irish to consecutive bowl games the past two years; the 2010 Hyundai Sun Bowl and the 2011 Champs Sports Bowl. In 2010 Notre Dame had its best per carry rushing average since 2003 (4.0), a figure that improved to 4.8 in 2011. The Irish offensive line allowed just 17 sacks this past season and only 20 in 2010.

And now he’s coming home to coach in his home state.

“I have always dreamed of having an opportunity to coach at Ohio State,” Warinner said. “Ohio State is a special place with special people and I am excited to be a part of it. I am really going to enjoy coaching here.”

Warinner was a football and baseball letterman at Mount Union from 1979-83. He and his wife, Mary Beth, have three children: daughters Madisyn and Merideth, and a son, Edward.

Tim Hinton – Tight Ends and Fullbacks

Hinton’s 30 seasons of coaching experience includes 16 seasons in the collegiate ranks with positions at Ohio State, Wilmington, Ohio, Cincinnati and Notre Dame, and 14 years as a head coach at three Ohio high schools:  Zane Trace (1987-88); Van Wert (1989) and Harding (1993-2003).

“I have always felt it would be an honor to have an opportunity to coach for and to represent Ohio State,” Hinton said. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to be able to work with great people and great coaches at such a wonderful place.”

This past season Notre Dame running back Cierre Wood rushed for 1,102 yards and nine touchdowns. In 2010, a quartet of Notre Dame rushers combined for 1,517 yards and a 4.8 yards per carry average and, impressively, fumbled only twice all season and both occurred in the same game.

Excellent ball protection was also evident among Hinton’s running backs at the University of Cincinnati, where he coached six years between 2004-09, including three seasons under former Ohio State assistant and current Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio. Neither of his two leading rushers during the 2009 UC season lost a fumble in 195 carries.

Hinton, who is 51, spent his first three seasons as running backs coach for Dantonio’s Bearcats teams. After coaching linebackers for the first year of the Kelly administration, he moved back to running backs for the 2008 and 2009 seasons.

Dantonio pulled Hinton from the high school ranks back into the college ranks after Hinton’s 11-year run at Harding High School, where in addition to directing his teams to five state playoff appearances, he developed 13 players who would go on to major college programs. He was extremely active in the Ohio High School Football Coaches Association, serving as an officer for six years, including vice-president of the organization in 2003.

“I’ve either coached or recruited in the state of Ohio for my entire 30-year coaching career,” Hinton said. “I still have great friends in the state. Ohio high school coaches are a unique group of individuals. They are excellent coaches, very professional, extremely loyal and they have great passion for the game.”

Three seasons at Ohio University, coaching the wide receivers in 1990 and the defensive line in 1991-92, preceded Hinton’s position at Harding and followed his first two head coaching positions at Zane Trace and Van Wert high schools, respectively.

While attending Wilmington College, Hinton was an assistant coach at Amanda-Clearcreek High School for three seasons (1978-80) and then parlayed that experience into a student-assistant position at Wilmington that started in 1981 and concluded in 1984. Wilmington won two conference titles during that time and made two appearances in the NAIA playoffs.

Hinton then enrolled at Ohio State to coach in a graduate assistant capacity for two seasons (1985-86) under Earle Bruce and to work on his master’s degree. The Buckeyes went to two bowl games and earned a share of the 1986 Big Ten championship.

Hinton and his wife, Bev, have two daughters: Dawn and Drew.

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