Ohio State expected to hire Oregon's Carlos Locklyn as running backs coach

Ohio State is expected to hire Oregon assistant Carlos Locklyn as its next running backs coach, The Dispatch has learned.

Locklyn will replace Tony Alford, a longtime assistant who left for the same role at Michigan last month.

As the running backs coach at Oregon for the last two seasons, Locklyn was involved with some of the most efficient rushing offenses in the nation.

Among the 133 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision, the Ducks ranked third last season with an average of 5.9 yards per carry. Their average of 5.5 yards per attempt in 2022 ranked sixth.

Locklyn coached Bucky Irving, a running back who was among the top rushers in the Pac-12 after posting consecutive 1,000-yard seasons.

A 46-year-old assistant who was a running back at Chattanooga in the late 1990s, Locklyn began coaching in the high school ranks in 2009. He served as the offensive coordinator for four different high schools in Tennessee.

In 2017, he joined the strength and conditioning staff at Memphis as a weight room assistant, the first among three years in off-field roles with the Tigers.

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After he spent 2020 as the director of high school relations at Florida State, he was hired as the running backs coach at Western Kentucky and landed on Dan Lanning’s initial coaching staff at Oregon a year later.

Though Ohio State had not yet finalized a deal with Locklyn as of Monday afternoon, the search for a replacement for Alford appeared to in the final stretch.

After the eighth spring practice on Saturday, coach Ryan Day said he hoped to have someone in place by the end of this week.

The Buckeyes are nearing the end of spring practice with their spring game scheduled for April 13.

Alford left a week into the start of spring practice in a surprise departure to their archrival, leaving Day to largely coach the position group in practices.

Carlos Locklyn’s buyout

It became less cost prohibitive this month for the Buckeyes to poach Locklyn, who signed a two-year extension with Oregon in February that included $400,000 in annual compensation.

Locklyn would have owed all his remaining guaranteed salary had he left for another school before Monday, according to a copy of the agreement obtained by USA TODAY Sports.

But that figure has now dropped in half as Locklyn would only need to pay the school a total worth 50% of his remaining salary, an amount equal to $366,667 as part of a deal running through Jan. 31, 2026.

To help newly hired assistant coaches mitigate buyout clauses in past years, Ohio State has offered them lump-sum payments.

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State expected to hire Oregon's Carlos Locklyn as RB coach