Earlier this month, Oklahoma State beat writer Seth Duckworth published a fun look at potential successors to living legend John Smith at The Other OSU. Someone asked me, “Hey Andy, who’s the next man up at Ohio State when Tom Ryan retires?”

That seems like a far-off question to me.

This will be Coach Ryan’s 15th season at Ohio State. He had 11 seasons at Hofstra before that, so he’ll be at 30 years in the profession as a head coach sooner than we realize . . . so maybe it’s not as far off as I might have thought. That said, the Iowa graduate just turned 50 last year, so he has more than a little “gas in the tank” yet, and he continues to coach and recruit at an extremely high level 15 years into his tenure.

While few men have the coaching tree Dan Gable has, several of Ryan’s wrestlers over the past 15 years are finding their way into the coaching ranks. Those seeds of a coaching tree are starting to sprout into some of the top up-and-coming faces matside.

Hell ya!! A few years ago I think tOSU only had 2 bucks coaching in the NCAA. Currently we have Jags, Heflin, BoJo, Sponsellar, Hunter, John Clark, myself and now Luke!! https://t.co/8uSxo4YHt0

— Johnni DiJulius (@johnnidijulius) April 8, 2020

As JDJ noted this spring, with Luke Pletcher joining the staff at Pitt, there are at least eight former Buckeyes on staff at a collegiate program.

John Clark is the lone head coach of the group at the moment. He took the helm at Sacred Heart in 2017 after stints at Stanford, Lehigh, and Brown. The 2004 Ohio State grad was a two-time All American and two-time Big Ten finalist under Russ Hellickson.

Meanwhile, 1,500 miles away from Connecticut, Norman, OK, looks like Columbus Southwest. Two-thirds of former Buckeye assistant Lou Rosselli’s assistants wrestled for him and Tom Ryan: Nick Heflin, now in his fourth season in Norman, and Hunter Stieber, now in his fifth season as a volunteer assistant.

Heflin spent two seasons at Princeton prior to joining Rosselli’s staff, while OU is Stieber’s first gig as a coach. Since 2016, the Oklahoma staff have turned out 24 Big 12 All-Academic honorees, 29 NCAA qualifications, and four conference finalists.

Back in the Buckeye State, another Ryan-coached wrestler is making his way in the coaching ranks. Colton Sponseller finished his fifth year as an assistant in the Ohio University Bobcat wrestling program. Prior to joining the staff in Athens, he spent three seasons as an assistant at Edinboro, coaching 12 NCAA qualifiers and nine All-Americans.

Johnni DiJulius, when not throwing himself out of perfectly functional airplanes, is on the Harvard Crimson wrestling staff. He joined the program last June after spending a season as the volunteer assistant at Kent State. Kent State has become a good first step for Buckeyes interested in coaching; recent Buckeye alumnus Te’Shan Campbell joined the staff as the program’s volunteer assistant last season.

Back in Columbus, two Ryan proteges are working alongside him in search of additional Big Ten and NCAA titles to extend the program’s string of elite NCAA finishes. J Jaggers was promoted to associate head coach in 2016 after serving six seasons as an assistant coach; he joined the staff as a volunteer assistant in the 2009-10 season.

Jaggers’ tenure as one of Ryan’s right-hand men has been one of the most successful stretches in Buckeye history. Ohio State reeled off five consecutive top-three team finishes as the NCAA Championships from 2015-19, and Jaggers has had a hand in recruiting and coaching wrestlers who have won nine NCAA individual titles and 21 individual Big Ten championships.

Four-time All-American Bo Jordan transitioned to the Buckeye coaching staff immediately upon graduating in 2018. Five Buckeyes made the All-America podium in 2019, and Jordan helped coach three NCAA finalist as the Buckeyes finished second in the team standings. Coaching is in his blood and getting started at Ohio State isn’t a bad way to launch a career.

One other name worth noting is Reece Humphrey. The head coach of the New Jersey Regional Training Center was not only an extremely successful wrestler at Ohio State, but he’s also followed an equally successful freestyle career with what looks to be a promising career in the coaching ranks.

In his first season at the helm in the Garden State, he coached two of his athletes to the 2019 U.S. Senior World freestyle team: Tyler Graff at 61kg and Patrick Downey at 86kg. Graff finished in fifth at the World Championships in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, while Downey finished ninth.

Anthony Ashnault, meanwhile, qualified for the Freestyle National Team at 70kg that season. 

The eye-popping results for a young coach earned Humphrey the 2019 Terry McCann Freestyle Coach of the Year by USA Wrestling. While he might get overlooked in traditional “coaching tree” discussions by not being on a D1 staff, it’s hard to undersell how bright the future looks for the three-time U.S. Open champ.

When Tom Ryan finally hangs up his whistle in another 15 or 20 seasons, signs point to his having more than a few potential successors out there. And with so many of his athletes finding success in the coaching ranks, there seems to be a good chance his coaching tree will sprout a few more leaves between now and then.

Andy Vance is a Columbus-based journalist who covers the Ohio State University wrestling program for Eleven Warriors, the largest independent sports site on the internet for Ohio State news, analysis, and community. He is co-host of the site’s Eleven Dubcast podcast. Follow him on Twitter @AndyVance.