By coaching standards, Brian Hartline is still quite young as he enters his seventh year coaching, and his sixth as an on-field staff member at Ohio State.
The former Ohio State and NFL receiver admitted to Will Compton and Taylor Lewan on a recent episode of Bussin' with the Boys that he initially had no desire to get into the coaching profession.
However, since joining the Buckeyes staff in a quality control role in 2017 following a short-lived run where he came back to Ohio State following his NFL career to be a scout team player for the Buckeyes (before the NCAA closed that loophole) while he was living up the street from campus, Hartline has had a meteoric rise.
He quickly established himself as one of college football's most dynamic recruiting presences, and then built some of the most formidable receivers units the game has ever seen, where they continue to reload and develop recruits (and not a single portal player) at an impressive rate.
Now, entering his first year as the Buckeyes offensive coordinator, following the departure of longtime play caller Kevin Wilson (who became the head coach at Tulsa), Hartline is taking the reigns of what has been one of college football's premier offenses over the past decade or so.
Past Ohio State coordinators, including Wilson and Tom Herman (who left for the head coaching job at Houston), have left for Group of Five head coaching opportunities, while Ryan Day ascended to the Buckeyes head coaching position following the retirement of Urban Meyer.
Hartline has his own vision on where his coaching career could take him.
Asked by Compton on the podcast what his career ambitions are, Hartline offered no fluff in his response.
"In my soul, I'm an NFL guy. It is the all-star league of college football. I don't care where you're from, or what school - small or big - there are no better players in the world. So I love that. I love the degree of separation being so small. I love that, and I love my alma mater, here at Ohio State."
"But my heart is in the NFL, and I think one day I would want to coach there. That's the reality of it. When will that be? I don't know. My in-laws and my wife are from Columbus, so there has been a big foundation that has been built here."
"So, I loved coaching the receivers, and when I started, I thought I'd be the receivers coach for the next 15 or 20 years, and just leave me alone, because I'm good. But as things grow, and as a competitor, people start putting nuggets in your head and you start thinking, 'Well that would be pretty sweet,' or 'That would be pretty cool.'"
"I have loved building the receiver room, and that has been an awesome opportunity, choosing it and developing it, and I would love to be able to do that with a team., and be a head coach and try to do that, and I'm kind of doing that now offensively."
"Where that ends up, I couldn't tell you, but that intrigues me."
Asked directly if he'd like to be an NFL head coach, Hartline added that he'd like to be in a position to win a national title at the college level, and then the NFL."
"All the marbles have to be on the table. It has to be the pinnacle., or maybe I don't have as much interest. If the pinnacle isn't an option - a Super Bowl or a National Championship - that's hard for me because I want all the marbles on the table."
See Hartline's full answer in the clip.