There has been a lot of excitement and media coverage recently, surrounding the appointment of Perry Eliano as the new coach Safeties coach for the Ohio State Buckeye’s football team, with hopes and expectations significantly raised for the coming season. Much of the fervor can be genuinely justified, especially when analyzing his previous coaching record, which dates all the way back to the start of the century in 2001.

Perry Eliano Coaching Career

After a couple of years as an Assistant Graduate, Eliano went on to coach both running backs and wide receivers at Central Arkansas, and then after just one year away at Sam Houston, he progressed to secondary coach when he returned to the 'Natural State', right up until 2010. He then became the special teams co-ordinator for UTSA, before moving on to become Associate Head Coach at Bowling Green, in 2016. Within four years he had moved to Cincinnati to take on a similar position there, having a role with the Cincinnati Corner-Backs.

As a safety during his own career, it is obviously advantageous to Eliano that those experiences mean he is no stranger to the position, and as a consequence can put into practice everything acquired during those years and quite rightly be regarded as something of a specialist. Coaching in and around the Ohio is not actually anything completely new to Eliano either, as he previously coached under Luke Fickell, the former defensive tackle and long time OSU coach; as well as the two years that he had at Bowling Green.

Growing up in Texas

His roots are very much in the south, Killeen in Texas to be precise, born there in the May of 1978. He was an outstanding prep defensive back, and earned for himself honors in his senior season after starring in his group, which helped the Eagles to reach the state quarter-finals in the Class 5A. He went on to play college ball at Stephen F Austin, where he also got his first job.

Eliano Developing Cornerbacks

He has established for himself a reputation for developing players into top prospects, no more so than at his last stop in Cincinnati. Two of his corner-backs: Ahmad Sauce Gardner and Coby Bryant were All-Americans last season, with the latter winning the Jim Thorpe Award under Eliano's expert guidance. Both players were ranked in the top ten corner-backs in the whole of the country and both are heavily tipped as early round NFL draft picks, with Gardner fancied to be the very top corner off the board.

At New Mexico two more of his corners: Jalin Burrell and D'Angelo Ross earned for themselves valuable opportunities with teams of the NFL. Back in 2014, when at UTSA, Triston Wade benefited from Perry Eliano's high class coaching which helped him to become the first ever Thorpe Award semi-finalist, spending priceless time with the Seattle Seahawks the year after.

Get To Know Ohio State's New Safeties Coach Perry Eliano