College football: Brunswick grad James Grega Jr. living dream as Ohio State (Club) football coach

Another college football season has come and gone, with Ohio State winning back-to-back national championships. No, you didn't read that wrong. It wasn't an error created by an AI-generated bot, either. With a 28-8 win over Coppin State on Dec. 6, Ohio State won its second consecutive National Club Football Association championship. The man leading the charge is coach James Grega Jr., a 2011 Brunswick graduate who started nine games at quarterback as a senior. He then played for the Ohio State club team for two years before deciding he wanted to help coach, because he felt there was an opportunity being missed for players to be coached more than they were at the time. "I wanted to be coached more," Grega said. "We only had two coaches, so we weren't really being coached. They were just kind of there and helping us go through the motions, but we weren't really being developed as players and as athletes at the club level, I guess you don't really expect much of that, but for me, I was playing college football, be it, you know, technically club. I just knew that I wanted more for myself." Grega was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2015 and 2017, taking a break to become the quarterbacks coach at Westerville South High School in 2016. He didn't plan on coming back in 2018, but was pursued by a couple of students and their advisor about taking over the program. Grega took over prior to the 2018 season and has turned the Buckeyes into a national powerhouse, going 55-7 over that span with four national titles, which included undefeated seasons in 2019 and 2025. Before Grega took the reins, the Buckeyes had gone 26-20 in their first six seasons in the NCFA and had failed to make the postseason. In his tenure, Ohio State has not lost a regular-season game to an NCFA opponent, has made the postseason each year and is now 14-3 in the tournament. "I saw what the program could be and I kind of had a vision for it, and the timing became right in 2018," Grega said. "I didn't want to step on the head coach's toes, but I really kind of felt the program could be more than what it had been." At the time, Grega was working full-time as a sportswriter, covering Ohio State athletics. He asked his bosses if he could have certain weekends off to travel to away games, but quickly realized that wasn't a perfect plan because coaching would take up more of his evenings and weekends, so he eventually landed a job in marketing and communications at Ohio State. "I started applying to more 9-to-5 kind of jobs because I wanted to pursue coaching a little more intensely," Grega said. "Getting that job really allowed me to pursue coaching more. I saw what it should be, and it was going to require a lot of hard work." Unlike Ryan Day, who is currently locked into a contract that pays him $12.5 million a year to coach the Ohio State Division I FBS football program, Grega and his assistant coaches run the club football program for no pay. "We all do this for free. We all have other full-time jobs," said Grega, who now works in marketing and communications for the OSU College of Arts and Sciences as a senior content specialist. "We don't get paid to coach the club football program at Ohio State, so you've got to have a very strong passion for it." His passion has resulted in a dynastic run for the Buckeyes, and 2025 might have been the best in the history of the NCFA. Not only did the Buckeyes win the national championship, they did so in dominating fashion. Ohio State won all nine games by at least 17 points, including eight by 20 or more and four by 40 or more. Ohio State averaged 42.2 points and allowed just 7.8, with only one opponent scoring in double figures, a 38-21 win over Ohio Wesleyan. Their dominance led to a sweep of the NCFA postseason awards, with quarterback Niko Pappas, an Avon native, winning offensive player of the year, Trey Jones winning defensive player of the year, Tommy Roberts III winning freshman of the year and Grega winning coach of the year for the second time, the first coming in 2019. The Buckeyes also had 21 players earn first- or second-team All-America. The number of All-Americans and individual awards were NCFA records. "I don't know if it was our most talented team, but it was definitely our deepest in my years here," Grega said. "The biggest thing, and it's kind of funny when you look at Indiana winning the (Division I FBS) national championship, it was probably our oldest team we've ever had. "We had a ton of transfers, a ton of guys who played like D-II and D-III football that maybe weren't getting the playing time they wanted or thought they deserved, so they came to Ohio State to get their degree. We recruited them and had a ton of guys with a ton of experience, and I think that showed throughout our season." Grega compares the level of competition in NCFA to NCAA D-III. That's how he sells the program to players during the recruiting process. "Obviously, we're not recruiting kids who have D-I or high-end D-II talent, but those kids who are being recruited heavily by Division III schools in the area, those are the kids we want," he said. "Then we get other kids too, from out of state who either have walk-on aspirations and maybe the varsity program doesn't have space for them." When it comes to getting the word out to prospective players, Grega leans heavily on his background in marketing and communications. That includes running the team's social media accounts and website, where he writes all the recaps and previews as well as any other pertinent content. "When I took over the program in 2018, we didn't even have a website, and the social medias were very rarely used, so when I came in, I kind of took over those and I kind of ran with it," Grega said. "I think that has been what's really helped us. I would say my background in marketing, communications and journalism has really been how we've gotten our brand and our program out there for a wider audience to see." The vision Grega had has come into full view, as Ohio State remains on top of the club football world. Contact Ryan Isley at sports@medina-gazette.com.