With Ohio State's season over, Tom Herman is now officially head coach of the Houston Cougars...but Urban Meyer wasted no time in finding and naming his replacement.
Former offensive line/co-OC Ed Warinner will become the new offensive coordinator, and Meyer additionally brought in former Nebraska OC/QBs coach Tim Beck as a co-OC/QBs coach.
Warinner - a native of Strasburg, Ohio - began his coaching career as a running backs coach at his alma mater, the University of Akron, in 1984. He quickly caught the eye of Nick Saban - then defensive coordinator at Michigan State - and spent two seasons there coaching linebackers and the secondary.
Warinner then spent over a decade coaching at service academies - he filled several positions for Army from 1987-1999 (mainly as a line coach), and then coached the offensive line at Air Force from 2000-2002. He was hired away by Kansas in 2003, and it was there that he started his ascent up the coaching ranks.
Starting out as a line coach, Warinner worked his way up to the Jayhawks' offensive coordinator position...and his offenses there were the most successful in the history of that school's football program. In 2007, Kansas averaged a record-setting 491.1 yards per game, won the Orange Bowl and finished 7th in the final Coaches and AP Polls (tied for the highest finish in school history).
Warinner departed for Notre Dame in 2010, where he spent two years before Urban Meyer hired him when putting his staff together at Ohio State.
Beck is also an Ohio native, hailing from Youngstown, and he graduated from the same high school (Cardinal Mooney) as the Pelini brothers and the Stoops brothers. After getting his start in the high school coaching ranks, Beck moved on to Illinois State in 1990. A variety of coaching jobs at midwest schools followed, with Beck taking a few high school head coaching jobs in addition to assistant positions at Kansas State and Missouri State.
Beck (pictured) was named Wide Receivers coach at Kansas in 2005, but interestingly, the only season he and Warinner spent together on that staff was their record-setting 2007 year (Warinner left Kansas in 2005 and 2006 to become OL/Run Game Coordinator at Illinois, but returned to KU as OC/QBs coach in '07). By then, Beck had been promoted to passing game coordinator.
When Bo Pelini - a high school classmate of Beck's - was named as Nebraska's head coach in 2008, he brought in Beck to be his running backs coach. Despite major strides in the running game, the offense struggled in 2010, and Pelini promoted Beck to offensive coordinator after firing Shawn Watson.
The Huskers were routinely ranked as one of the nation's top rushing offenses under Beck, but he left along with the majority of Pelini's staff when Pelini was fired in November. Beck was nominated for the Broyles Award (given to college football's top assistant) in 2012 and 2013.
Both coaches have built extremely successful running games at multiple schools, and fans can expect to see plenty more of Ezekiel Elliott next year with these two calling the plays.
Back to the Ohio State Buckeyes Newsfeed