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Sean McDonnell Is a Name To Know in Ohio State’s National Championship Run

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Sean McDonnell is a name that might not mean much to a majority of fans ahead of the College Football Playoff National Championship Game between Notre Dame and Ohio State.

But it should.

The name carries significant weight in the Buckeyes’ return to the title game. Before Ohio State’s last national championship appearance in January 2021, I asked Ryan Day about McDonnell. Day said, “Coach Mac was a huge part” of preparing the Ohio State coach.

Similarly, I brought up McDonnell to Ohio State offensive coordinator Chip Kelly later that year. The then-UCLA head coach choked up discussing McDonnell’s impact.

For those unfamiliar, Sean McDonnell is among the winningest coaches of the 21st century. A presumptive lock for the College Football Hall of Fame, he coached the University of New Hampshire to 14 consecutive NCAA Division I-AA/Football Championship Subdivision Playoffs.

To provide some perspective on how remarkable that feat is, powerhouse North Dakota State only surpassed UNH’s playoff streak with this year’s appearance in the Bison’s 15th straight FCS postseason.

One key differentiator, however, is that North Dakota State claimed its 10th national championship. UNH never advanced further than the national semifinals.

The absence of a national championship also plagues McDonnell’s head coaching tree, which is among the most impressive active legacies in the sport. Among his noteworthy former assistants and players are Tony Trisciani, who coached Elon to the 2022 FCS Playoffs; Dan Curran, the Holy Cross head coach who previously helped Merrimack navigate its transition from Division II to Division I; and current UNH leader Rick Santos.

Ryan Carty will guide longtime FCS power Delaware into the FBS beginning next season, and the former Coach Mac assistant won a national title as offensive coordinator at Sam Houston in the spring 2021 COVID season.

But if Ohio State can beat Notre Dame, Day will become the first head coach from McDonnell’s illustrious tree to lead a team to a national title.

Day’s offensive coordinator, Kelly, came close. Were it not for a late-game Michael Dyer run—which Oregon faithful will gladly tell you should have been whistled down—Kelly’s 2010 Ducks might have claimed the Bowl Championship Series crown.

That flirtation with the national championship came just three years after Oregon suffered another bad break that might have denied the Ducks top billing. Dennis Dixon was a leading contender for the Heisman Trophy in 2007, and Oregon was threatening to reach the BCS Championship Game before Dixon sustained a late-season knee injury.

Despite the setback, Oregon’s innovative offense became the talk of college football. The scheme can be described as a Frankenstein’s monster, stitching together parts of hurry-up, no-huddle play-calling usually reserved for the final two minutes of games and employing it for 60 minutes; combining it with elements of the multiple-receiver spread sets that were becoming increasingly en vogue in the late 2000s; and adding doses of the tried-and-true option.

This was Kelly’s first year as Oregon’s offensive coordinator, and his arrival on the national stage seemingly came out of nowhere. National college football media treated Kelly’s background at UNH as little more than a novelty—a fun footnote when introducing the Ducks’ gaudy offensive numbers.

In reality, Durham, New Hampshire, offered the ideal birthplace for concepts that revolutionized the sport. To wit, had Dixon won the Heisman in 2007, Kelly would have had the unique honor of coordinating offenses that facilitated both the Heisman and Walter Payton Award winners in consecutive seasons.

Current UNH head coach Santos, who took over for McDonnell first as an interim coach in 2019 and then as the permanent Wildcats leader in 2022, earned the FCS version of the Heisman in 2006. That was the last of Kelly’s eight seasons coordinating the UNH offense, a tenure during which his quarterbacks included a young Ryan Day.

The relationship is well-documented, particularly since Day hired Kelly as Ohio State’s offensive coordinator last spring. A surprise when it unfolded, Kelly described his move from being UCLA’s head coach as a chance to “coach again, not [work as] a CEO.”

The Buckeyes’ defense has been front and center for much of the season, most notably with Jack Sawyer’s Cotton Bowl-sealing scoop-and-score against Texas. But in Playoff blowouts of Tennessee and Oregon, it’s hard not to see Will Howard dissect talented opponents and be reminded of previous Kelly-coached quarterbacks like Dixon, Marcus Mariota, Dorian Thompson-Robinson, and Santos picking apart the opposition.

And if Howard delivers against Notre Dame, with Day and Kelly calling a winning game plan, everyone watching this Ohio State team should be reminded of the name Sean McDonnell—whether they knew the name before or not.



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