He’s one of college football’s winningest coaches — yet his own team’s fans aren’t sold on him
Ohio State coach Ryan Day after the Buckeyes defeated the Tennessee Volunteers 42-17 in a first-round playoff game in Columbus, Ohio, on Dec.
For as long as there have been coaches, there has been consternation over their performance.
Yet even in that generations-old tradition, the case of Ohio State’s Ryan Day is unique. Few coaches have produced as much ostensible success — and angst.
In his six seasons in Columbus, Day’s Ohio State teams have made four playoff appearances and won two Big Ten conference titles — making him the first coach since the program began in 1890 to start his career with consecutive conference titles. Under Day, the Buckeyes are 39-3 at home, 46-5 against conference opponents and 21-9 against ranked teams.
When the Buckeyes arrive at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, for Wednesday’s College Football Playoff quarterfinal matchup against top-seeded Oregon, Day will boast a record of 67-10 and a winning percentage of .870, which, if it qualified (he hasn’t yet coached 10 seasons), would rank second on college football’s all-time coaching leader board.
A start like that might lead some coaches to be lionized or to earn enough goodwill to ensure decades of job security. Not in Columbus, where over the past month local coverage has described the “Day dilemma” and national outlets have pondered “How hot is Ryan Day’s Seat at Ohio State?”
“People are uncomfortable, and they don’t like him right now, there’s no question about it,” said Ari Wasserman, a national college football reporter for On3, who previously covered Ohio State for a decade as a beat reporter.
his two predecessors who won national championships in their first three seasons, Day has yet to claim a national title. In Columbus, however, perhaps even more damning is that Ohio State has also struggled in the other main criterion by which its football coaches are evaluated: It can’t beat its biggest rival.
Under Day, Ohio State is 1-4 against archrival Michigan, including four consecutive losses, and while fans could rationalize that rivalry losses in 2021, 2022 and 2023 were against strong Michigan teams — the most recent of which went on to win the national championship — the Buckeyes’ Nov. 30 defeat was mostly baffling.
Unranked, playing on the road and 20.5-point underdogs, the Wolverines commanded the game en route to a stunning win. As a postgame skirmish broke out on the field, cameras caught Day looking on, unmoving, as if in a daze. On social media, commenters were quick to point out that Ohio State had fallen flat despite having assembled a roster that, the school’s new athletic director said last summer, had cost $20 million in name, image and likeness payments.
One month later, even after Ohio State routed Tennessee in a first-round playoff game on Dec. 21, “OSU fans are still in a bit of shock about the Buckeyes playing such a bad game against a substandard Michigan team,” Doug Lesmerises, host of “Kings of the North,” a college football YouTube show, wrote by email
Be the first to comment