You could certainly argue that Ohio State's Ryan Day made the two most impressive offensive coordinator hires in all of college football this off season the brief tenure of Bill O'Brien (before he left to become the head coach at Boston College) before appointing Chip Kelly the offensive play caller of the Buckeyes.
Day is facing another key opening on the offensive staff at the running backs spot after losing Tony Alford to Michigan, where Alford got a bump in title to run game coordinator / running backs coach, leaving an impressive and veteran group of backs in Columbus in the process.
While the two openings Day has had this off season on the offensive side of the ball have very different responsibilities, Day says he's approached each one with the same strategy - with a group of candidates that fill an A-List, B-List, and C-List.
"It wasn't like I ranked them in that order. I put them in the A List, and man if we could get one of those guys then we're where we need to be. I'm kind of doing the same with the running backs [coaches] right now."
"The way that I did it, and it's kind of the same thing we're doing with the running backs [job], is right out of the gate I try to identify an A-List. Those are guys that I feel like, if we can hire these guys - I only had three guys - and Bill and Chip were both on that list. I felt like if we could get one of those then we were in really good shape."
"Then there was a B-List and, there was kind of a C-List, and I kind of felt like if we got to the C-List then I was just going to go back to calling plays."
How O'Brien was the first to step into the coordinator role wasn't a matter of Day's rankings on that A List, but was rather a product of timing, Day shared.
"It was more of a timing issue the first time around with Chip. So Bill became available, we made that move and felt like the timing was right on that and then that changed and went right back to Chip. Then, the timing was, even just a few weeks, when you're dealing with all of that, comes into play."
"I think for Chip as well, there was a lot on his mind so he kind of had to sort through all of that. By the time Bill had left, he was in a different place based on a lot of things."
Of course, Kelly and Day's longstanding relationship goes back decades to their time together on staff at New Hampshire, and has been well documented since Kelly's arrival in Columbus.
Hear more from Day in the clip.