COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Born 23 days and 240 miles apart in 1979, Ryan Day (Manchester, N.H.) and Jeff Hafley (Montvale, N.J.) both played Division I-AA football in the Northeast and started their coaching careers there, running into each other at football camps.

In 2003 and 2004, Day was a graduate assistant at Boston College. Hafley, coaching the secondary at Albany, had a friend who was also a GA at B.C. Hafley would visit, and got to know Day. By 2006, Hafley was coaching at Pitt, and in 2007 Day landed back at Boston College as the receivers coach.

Now they were out on the recruiting trail, often chasing the same kids at the same schools.

“I remember walking into a high school and seeing him,” Hafley told cleveland.com.

In 2012, Hafley reached the NFL in Tampa Bay, following the head coach, Greg Schiano, who he had worked for at Rutgers for a season. When Schiano was fired after 2013, Hafley landed with the Browns in 2014 and 2015, while Day got his first NFL job in 2015 in Philadelphia, working for his mentor, Chip Kelly.

Kelly was fired in Philadelphia after 2015 and hired in San Francisco, and Day followed, and when Mike Pettine was fired by the Browns, Hafley was looking for work. He interviewed in San Francisco with Kelly and two of the assistants Kelly had brought from Philadelphia. One was Day. Hafley was hired.

Soon, they were living minutes apart in the Bay Area. They’d drive into work together. Hafley would watch Day’s son, R.J., play baseball. On long road trips with the 49ers, they’d share meals and swap advice, peer to peer, offense to defense.

“On every staff you go to, there’s one or two guys you draw a closer connection to," Hafley, in his office, explained to cleveland.com this month. “It’s the nature of the business.”

The connection didn’t take long. It couldn’t take long. Hafley was hired on Jan. 24, 2016. Kelly was fired, and the staff dismantled, on Jan. 1, 2017.

Both had reached the same conclusion.

“I didn’t know I’d be the head coach here, and that’s how it would work out," Day said. "But I always knew I’d coach with him again.

“I believed we would coach together again,” Hafley said. “I didn’t know it would be here. But I hoped we’d coach together again. And I’m happy it’s here.”

Creating Day’s staff

Hiring a staff is one of a new head coach’s most critical duties -- not as important as recruiting but in the mix with everything else. That was one of the many things that Day, as the new coach of the 7-0, No. 3 Buckeyes, who host Wisconsin on Saturday, had never done before.

“I think our staff has done an excellent job,” Day said. “I think when you piece it together, it’s not that easy. There’s so many different things that come into play -- recruiting, experience, energy, football knowledge. I mean, all those things when you try to piece it together, it’s really important. And I think chemistry. If guys don’t get along well, it doesn’t work. I talk to our guys about that. Our team can feel the staff chemistry. If we love each other as coaches, then they’re going to feel that, and that was just as important as anything.”

Day stepped into a rare situation at a powerhouse where the structure was in place, and kept five assistants from Urban Meyer’s staff. Two (Greg Studrawa, Tony Alford) had previous ties to Meyer. One (Brian Hartline) is an alum who would work at Ohio State under any circumstance, and two were top-tier veteran assistants with long resumes (Kevin Wilson, Larry Johnson.)

That left five hires, as Day made the necessary decision to clean out the defensive side of the ball. Assistant secondary coach and special teams coach Matt Barnes caught Ohio State’s attention with the way his unit played at Maryland last season. Plus, the Buckeyes needed another lower-paid assistant (Barnes makes $350,000) with five of the 10 position coaches making at least $900,000. Co-defensive coordinator Greg Mattison was brought in for his Big Ten experience on Meyer’s recommendation after he worked for Meyer at Florida 12 years ago.

That leaves three pure Day hires, where he could target almost anyone in the country, pull out any name he’d had in his back pocket, and go get him.

One was Euclid native Mike Yurcich, the Oklahoma State offensive coordinator Day hired to fill his own shoes. One was linebackers coach Al Washington, who grew up in Columbus as the son of a former OSU linebacker. Washington played at Boston College when Day was a graduate assistant and was the running backs coach for the Eagles when Day was the quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator.

The other was Hafley, who unlike Yurcich and Washington, didn’t grow up in Ohio. He had one connection to Ohio State -- his friend was the new boss. He wouldn’t be here without him.

Jeff Hafley is in his first season as Ohio State's secondary coach and co-defensive coordinator. (David Petkiewicz, cleveland.com)

Choosing Columbus

Without Day, Hafley likely would be somewhere in the NFL. He was retained in San Francisco after Kelly was fired, meaning he’d spent seven years coaching pros. He’s insisted he’s a college guy first. Still, he may have ended up with the Cincinnati Bengals, where an opportunity was possible.

Day wanted him in Columbus.

“We had several conversations about coaching in college, and that’s where we both wanted to end up,” Day said. “He’s somebody I had a connection with right away, had a lot of respect for. I think he’s a tremendous coach, relates well with players, and he’s a great recruiter, and that was somebody I always wanted to be around.”

Hafley said “we just kind of clicked," and of their time in San Francisco, and it’s easy to see why. They are 40-year-old versions of the same guy, one with a taste for offense, the other defense. Both have talked of taking complex NFL ideas, simplifying them for college athletes, and creating situations for players to execute high-level concepts with confidence. On a professional level, Hafley wanted the opportunity that Ohio State could provide.

“I wanted to coordinate,” said Hafley, the defensive co-coordinator with Mattison. “I wanted for work for a good guy. I wanted to work in a place I believed we could win. I wanted to work in a place my family would be comfortable living. And then certainly you have to think about your goals.

“I’d like to be a head coach one day. So certainly that factored into it, to come to a place like Ohio State to learn from the guys who have been here and have the opportunity to win games and play good defense, that’s certainly a factor as well.”

Hafley isn’t likely to jump at just any head coaching opportunity. Pick the wrong one and your career can get off track very easily. He’s aware you can be a very good coach, yet be unable to show that. So assume he’s back for at least another year or two. Because there’s something else at play for Hafley; his wife, Gina; and their two daughters aged 4 and 1. He said that personal level is the top reason he’s here.

“I’ve been at places where I’ve been in the office until 3 in the morning, and with kids right now, that’s something I won’t do unless I need to do it,” Hafley said. "I won’t do that to my family. I know in this business, some coaches don’t respect time with family. If I can choose, I don’t want to work for someone who doesn’t respect that. If I can choose, I want to be with someone like Ryan, because I know he’ll respect my family. His family comes first, so I know my family will come first.

“I’ve seen guys totally lose their relationships with the kids and their wife, and as much as I love coaching football, my wife and my kids are more important to me. If football takes over, I’m going to have a hard time.”

The path of friendship

This is a story about hiring a friend. A year ago, I criticized Meyer for hiring a staff filled with too many of his friends, including defensive coaches Greg Schiano and Bill Davis. Like most things in life, this is great when it works and a terrible idea when it doesn’t.

When, for instance, Luke Fickell was able to make a single hire in 2011 as Ohio State’s interim head coach, he hired retired NFL defensive lineman Mike Vrabel, one of his best friends, for Vrabel’s first coaching job. Vrabel became a rising star, and is now the head coach of the Tennessee Titans. Good hire.

But as I’ve written many times before, some of Meyer’s quick success at Florida (his third head coaching job, where he won his first national title) came from his staff. He hired three assistants who became head coaches (Dan Mullen, Steve Addazio and Doc Holliday) and retained another from Ron Zook’s staff who did so as well (Charlie Strong). But over time, your top choices as assistants are no longer available. That list in your back pocket has a lot of names crossed out, because guys have gone on to their own success.

Hiring gets more difficult.

But when Meyer hired Schiano as his defensive coordinator in 2016, their story was a different generation of the Day and Hafley story. They got to know each other as young coaches at camps and on the recruiting trail. One day, they finally worked together. It worked ... until it didn’t. Hafley is leading a defense that was held back by Schiano’s plan a year ago.

But early at every stop, Meyer hired great staffs. He hired guys he trusted, led by someone like Mullen, now the head coach at Florida.

This is Day’s first stop. Hafley was at the top of the list.

“I had a list of guys that I was colleagues with and people I respected,” Day said, “but you just never know where people are at in their careers and where things are at."

Hafley was at the right point in his life, Day at the right place. The result is a first-year head coach with an undefeated team, and a coordinator who said he’s having more fun coaching than he’s had in years.

“It all starts with Ryan," Hafley said. “He lets you coach. He really lets you coach. He’ll guide you, he’ll give you suggestions, he’ll give you ideas, but he lets you do your job. To any assistant, that’s probably one of the most important things.”

To any new head coach, the most important thing is hiring guys you trust.

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