Ohio State University won the 2025 College Football Playoff National Championship 34-23 against Notre Dame University on Monday, Jan. 20.
Two coaches with Nassau County roots celebrated their first-ever championship after spending nearly a decade together on and off the field.
Sean Binckes and Mike Sollenne began their college football careers as players for Long Island University in 2012.
Binckes, a tight end from Brooklyn and Sollenne, a left tackle from Massapequa were each other’s first roommates at camp before their freshman year. The two played alongside each other for four years.
Binckes credited Sollenne for convincing him to get into coaching. Sollenne took the offensive line coaching position at Nassau Community College in 2016, and Binckes joined him on the team’s football staff as a wide receiver and strength and conditioning coach. The team went 1-7 during their first year, but despite it all, Sollenne knew he made the right decision.
“We were so bad, but I loved it,” he said. “I loved every second of it. I couldn’t wait to leave work and get to practice. I couldn’t wait to get around the players, because at the end of the day, coaching really is just teaching, and I love teaching, and I love football.”
The team had winning records in both 2016 and 2017. Binckes an Sollenne coached together for three years at NCC before Sollenne joined the coaching staff at Austin Peay State in 2018. Binckes stayed at Nassau Community for one more year before leaving in 2019.
Both coaches continued to bounce around before ending up at Ohio State. Sollenne went from Austin Peay to the University of Florida while Binckes went to Florida International Univeritsy and Temple University. Sollenne joined the Buckeyes in 2022 and Binckes followed one year later. Both coaches were offensive graduate assistants during the team’s championship season.
Binckes said coaching at a program like Nassau Community gave him an opportunity to learn what it takes to do his job.
“There are a lot of guys that didn’t really get a chance to be in front of a room and coach people and learn what it’s like to lead and coach,” he said.
Ohio State made the College Football Playoff in 2022 but fell in the Peach Bowl to the University of Georgia. The team then missed the playoff entirely in 2023. A rule change implementing a 12-team playoff went into effect in 2024, making it possible for Ohio State, an eighth seed, to have a shot at the title.
“For Mike and I, there are moments where you look around and say, wow, we’re standing in the Rose Bowl,” Binckes said. “As you grew up watching this stuff on TV, you go to college at [LIU] Post and you’re like, I’m probably never going to really experience that even though you probably dreamed of it as a kid. Then all of a sudden, you’re playing Notre Dame in the national championship.”
“You put a lot of work in for that moment,” Sellenne said.
And when asked about the bond that the two coaches had, neither held back.
“We were in each other’s wedding and all of that stuff,” Binckes said.
“He’s more like family to me than anything,” Sollenne said.
Binckes will continue to coach at Ohio State for the upcoming season while Sollenne will join the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to be their offensive line coach in 2025.
