Mycampusplug
“Good News!” Ohio State Finally Unleashing Its Most Dangerous Defensive Weapon
COLUMBUS, Ohio — C.J. Hicks has finally found a home as an Ohio State football player.
Three years of essentially being turned into an idea of what could be have tested the patience and the resolve of the former five-star recruit who once called himself ‘Captain Buckeye.’
Hicks enters Year 4 having watched his potential go from being an exciting thing to talk about to an exhausted subject that most of checked out on listening to. That ‘everyone’ even includes him. He’s heard every clinch, soundbite and talking point about how this coaching staff envisioned implementing him in a defense that never actually had a spot for what his skillset was. Instead, they kept trying to fit a square peg into a round hole with his development, while others passed him on the depth chart.
In three seasons, the former top-10 recruit has played 226 defensive snaps while having a constant role on special teams. It would’ve been reasonable for someone of his recruiting pedigree to hit a boiling point and enter the transfer portal.
So why didn’t he?
“Even if you look at our 2022 class we had a lot of guys (and) now we only have six guys here,” Hicks said. “Each year I felt like God was telling me to stay. Yeah, there were opportunities to transfer but God just said stay. Let His will be done.”
His reward for showing resiliency was always going to pay off in 2025. He’d already started the process of moving from linebacker to defensive end during OSU’s championship run. There’d been conversations with head coach Ryan Day and then-defensive coordinator Jim Knowles about him playing the ‘Jack’ position now that the defense finally had room for it.
Then Knowle left for Penn State and Day hired long-time NFL coach Matt Patricia. A man who might end up being the best thing that’s ever happened to Hicks.
“I love Coach Patricia,” Hick said. “He’s a great coach. His experience in the league with all types of hybrid guys helps me with my skillset and what I’m trying to do.”
Hicks’ profile isn’t new to Patricia. He made his calling off of it during all that time spent as Bill Belichick’s defensive coordinator with the New England Patriots. Players with that profile played a significant role in why Patricia has three Super Bowl rings. He’s literally the perfect person to finally take the term ‘Unleash C.J. Hicks’ and make it more than just words into a microphone.
When we hired Matt Patricia the first person I thought about was C.J.,” linebacker coach James Laurinaitis said. “It’s a fresh start. A new set of eyes on him and I think it’s an opportunity to be multiple and use him at what he does best.”
We are two weeks into the Hicks-Patricia and the early returns on positive. Hicks is now a defensive end going through an expedited version of defensive line coach Larry Johnson’s school of pass-rushing because he knows he doesn’t have a ton of time to waste. No, he hasn’t played a ton, but this is still his final year of eligibility. This has to work and he knows that.
“Every little drill that we do I try to make sure I’m doing it to the T,” Hicks said. “I don’t like to mess up. That’s why you see me after practice working with Coach Johnson or Coach Patricia because I know it’s very urgent, but I still feel like I have time. It’s only the spring. I have 158 days until we play Texas.”
Hicks is trying to go 0-to-60 in terms of what his impact as a Buckeye has been to what it could be in 2025 and his action so far mirrors that.
And it helps that he has the talent to back it up.
“He’s a tremendous guy,” Patricia said. “Then energy and excitement. He’s always trying to please and he’s really eager to learn.
“Skillset-wise wise he’s really unique. He can play off the ball. He can play on the ball. He does a good job of transitioning his vision. Sometimes when you go behind the line of scrimmage, you have to adjust your vision, but he does that very well.”
Patricia noticed the similarities between Hicks and players from his past immediately. He saw a skillset he was familiar with and immediately knew what to do with it.
Hicks might lack experience while also trying to learn a brand new position after spending three years doing something else. But Patricia knows a weapon when he sees one.
His explosive power,” Patricia said. “When you watch him pass rush, he has some great skill pass rushing on the edge. But even in the run game that explosive pop that he can have. Some of the other hybrid outside linebackers/defensive ends that I’ve coached in the past have a similar type of skillset. Similar type of body frame. That’s good because you can use him in unique ways and hopefully cause the offense a little bit of confusion when you do that with those guys. I see a lot of similarities.”
Hicks has a knack for getting after the quarterback. It’s what made him such a sought-after recruit and why even after playing just 226 snaps in three seasons he’s still such an intriguing prospect. He just needed the right person in charge to tap into it. He finally has that in Patricia and is in the right room to help that skillset blossom now that he’s with Johnson.
That’s what makes this spring so important. The natural ability is already there. Now he just needs to tools and the physical development that goes along with it. Doing so may mean his prediction of one day leading Ohio State in sacks wasn’t a matter of him being right or wrong, but more just being a year too early.
The former five-star recruit has finally found a home that’s a perfect fit. Now it’s time to see if he can get home as the Buckeyes’ new weapon.
“A lot of people think because I’m 240 I don’t have any power,” Hicks said. ”But I can definitely run through somebody’s face if I need to.”
