Ohio State football history: Where is former cornerback Richard McNutt now?

Defensive players don't win the Heisman Trophy, especially not defensive players who are limited by an arthritic right ankle. But if you've got a cheeky name, a big personality and play for a team with a large enough fan base, you might still end up the subject of a Heisman campaign.

Such was the case for Ohio State cornerback Richard McNutt, whose awards push was all in good fun, even if his football career was not.

"He was in extraordinary pain," coach Jim Tressel noted at the time injuries cut short McNutt's playing days, halfway through the Buckeyes' national championship season in 2002.

With Tressel's prodding, McNutt turned that pain into something else extraordinary: a coaching career that started almost as soon as his cleats were put away.

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"Coach Tressel brought me in and asked if I wanted to be a regular guy or be part of the team," McNutt recalled, "and I told him, 'Team is all I know.' So, he told me to get with coach (Mark) Dantonio and coach (Mel) Tucker and find out how I can help."

Dantonio, then the Buckeyes' defensive coordinator, and Tucker, the defensive backs coach, asked McNutt to mentor the player who took over his starting spot, eventual NFL first-round draft pick Chris Gamble.

That mentorship continued during McNutt's final year at OSU when he served as a defacto coach.

From there, his journey has taken him to FCS schools, Youngstown State and three different Mid-American Conference programs.

At Northern Illinois, McNutt helped the Huskies win back-to-back MAC titles, and head coach Dave Doeren called him “one of the most aggressive and talented recruiters” he had worked with.

"I'm not limited to recruiting anywhere," McNutt explained. "You send me to the jungle, I'll bring you back a lion, bring you back the king. It doesn't matter where I am, I am going to succeed. I'm going to thrive. I'm going to make the best of it. Coaching has allowed me to see a lot of different places, a lot of different regions and meet a lot of different people."

He even spent a stint with the Cleveland Browns and is now in his fourth season at Tennessee State, where he works as the defensive backs coach under head coach Eddie George.

"Coach George is a leader of men," McNutt said. "He has a different patience, a different demeanor, a different attack when it comes to dealing with the day-to-day operations of coaches. And you get to watch him meticulously sort through each phase of the program. He doesn't make rash decisions. He doesn't do things off impulse. He really thinks things through."

He also, according to McNutt, gives his assistants quite a bit of autonomy.

"I'm not the head coach," McNutt said, "but I am the head coach of my room."

McNutt would ultimately like to be a head coach, and he knows there are steps he has to take to get there.

"I feel like I can be a coordinator," he said, "and one day it's going to land me being the head coach of the Bears."

The Chicago native laughed. "Definitely would love that."

What he loves even more is his role as dad to two sons and two daughters. Devon, who played at Youngstown State, is following his dad's footsteps into training and coaching. Nya has three degrees and graduated from Vanderbilt this spring. Leyla is the youngest, and as her father likes to note, has "great examples in front of her."

That just leaves Trey McNutt. He considered going to Ohio State, but last month the five-star safety committed to the Oregon Ducks.

"He has a passion for it and he's blazing his own trail," Richard McNutt said. "He said he wanted to be the No. 1 defensive back in the country and the No. 1 player in the country, and it's awesome to sit back and watch how this journey unfolds."

If it unfolds the way he hopes, maybe someone can still get some use out their old "McNutt for Heisman" T-shirt.

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Where is Ohio State football cornerback Richard McNutt now