Ridiculous or reality? Ohio State’s Ryan Day enters the CFP with a heavy burden

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State coach Ryan Day had his left hand on his hip and his right arm around cornerback Jermaine Mathews Jr.

As the Ohio State band played “Carmen Ohio” following another loss to rival Michigan on Nov. 30, and the team gathered — as it does after every home game — to sing along, Day glanced up at the scoreboard. Boos rained down from the Ohio Stadium crowd, drowning out the alma mater.

Suddenly, Mathews turned and sprinted toward midfield, where the Wolverines had planted their flag. Day turned to see what was happening but, as if frozen in shock, only took a few steps and watched as players from both schools clashed — a melee that lasted five minutes and left a university police officer hospitalized. Police finally quashed the brawl, but only after deploying pepper spray.

The loss and the ugly scene that followed marked a low point for Day, Ohio State’s sixth-year coach, after a tenure that began with incredible promise. He won 42 of his first 46 games with the Buckeyes as head coach, claiming two Big Ten championships and reaching the national title game in his second full season. Day still boasts a 66-10 overall record. Only Urban Meyer, the man Day worked under and eventually replaced, has a better winning percentage among Ohio State coaches who lasted three or more seasons. But four consecutive losses to Michigan, no Big Ten titles since 2020 and no national championships have ratcheted up the pressure on Day and a team Ohio State invested $20 million in to retain and upgrade this offseason.

But despite the worst loss of Day’s career, Ohio State isn’t finished, having advanced to the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff. The eighth-seeded Buckeyes will host No. 9 seed Tennessee in the first round Saturday night (8 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN).

For Ohio State’s seniors, who will end their careers without a win over Michigan or a Big Ten title, the upcoming CFP will be their last opportunity to leave with a true milestone.

Day’s future as Ohio State coach in 2025 and beyond has been a sweltering topic since the latest Michigan loss. First-year Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork, who did not hire Day, said last week he’s “absolutely” confident Day will return in 2025, regardless of how the team performs in the CFP.

“Coach Day is awesome,” Bjork told 97.1 FM The Fan in Columbus. “He’s great to work with. He totally gets it. He loves being a Buckeye. So we’re going to support him at the highest level.”

But before the season, those close to the program told ESPN that anything short of a win over Michigan or a deep run in the playoff could prompt Ohio State to consider a coaching change. Day would be owed more than $38 million if fired, sources said, an amount that could ultimately make a change prohibitive.

Since that stunning 13-10 loss to the Wolverines, who came to Columbus as three-touchdown underdogs, some vocal sections of the Buckeye fan base have been clamoring for Day’s firing — even though he’s 47-1 against Big Ten opponents other than Michigan.

“You got the second winningest coach [by percentage] in the history of Ohio State, and you keep reading about the pressure,” former Buckeyes athletic director Gene Smith told ESPN. “Well, that’s what you signed up for. But this win-or-lose-your-job mentality is absolutely ridiculous.”

Whether it’s ridiculous or reality, Day enters the CFP with a heavier burden than any other coach. He leads a program where expectations have been elevated for generations without relenting and where outcomes against Michigan overshadow just about every other achievement (or demerit).

But thanks to the expanded CFP, he still has a chance to achieve something even greater.

“We’re in the playoffs now. That game is behind us,” Day said this week. “The [result] is never going to change, it’s never going to change here at Ohio State. However, the playoffs have. The expanded playoffs have. … So all right, we’re in this thing.”

SMITH HAS EXPERIENCED pressure points around the college football map since he began playing defensive line for coach Ara Parseghian at Notre Dame in 1973. He later coached at Notre Dame before leading athletic departments at Eastern Michigan, Iowa State, Arizona State and Ohio State, where he served as athletic director from 2005 until his retirement in July.

The angst around the Ohio State program is different, Smith said, in part because the pressure there has been in place for so long, without relenting, because of the team’s success. Since coach Woody Hayes came to Ohio State in February 1951, the Buckeyes have become one of the most consistently elite teams in all of American sports.

Since 1951, Ohio State has won 78% percent of its games, which leads the FBS. The Buckeyes have had only three losing regular seasons during the span, and none since 1988. Hayes led Ohio State to its first 10-0 season in 1954 and replicated the record in 1968 and 1973. Ohio State now has 32 seasons of 10 or more wins, reaching double figures in 19 of the past 22 years and 25 times overall since 1993.

“It goes all the way back to Woody,” Smith said. “Ohio State is always in the hunt. You don’t lose multiple games in a season. It’s a different beast from that perspective because it’s been such a long time of success, and dominant success. That’s the beauty of it. You want that.”

Ohio State stands out from its historical peers in college football — Alabama, Oklahoma, Georgia, Texas, USC, Notre Dame — because of the nature of its rivalry game. The Buckeyes have a conference rival that stands on equal historical footing, unlike Alabama (Auburn).

They also always play Michigan at the end of the regular season, often with Big Ten title stakes on the line. The loser of The Game usually sits with disappointment for several weeks before getting back on the field. Oklahoma and Texas play one of the sport’s most intense rivalries, but the game traditionally takes place in early to mid-October, long before conference and CFP races truly take shape. USC and Notre Dame meet annually but in a nonleague game only played at the end of the season when in Los Angeles.

In 2001, coach Jim Tressel’s first Ohio State team lost five games, more than all but two of the previous 34 Buckeyes editions. But Tressel finished the regular season by leading Ohio State to a road upset of the 10th-ranked Wolverines, fulfilling the promise he made after being introduced at a basketball game earlier that year.

“It was an interesting reality because we were 7-5, but we beat Michigan and everyone was happy,” Tressel recalled. “I’m not sure we were.”

While coaching Ohio State, Tressel would attend events with former players. They didn’t talk about how many Big Ten championships they had won or individual awards or overall records.

“They always wanted to tell you what their record against Michigan was, if it was good,” Tressel said. “And they wanted to stay away from that conversation if it wasn’t.”

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The Michigan game has always carried added significance for everyone in and around the Ohio State program. The Buckeyes’ dominance under Tressel, who went 9-1 against the Wolverines, and Urban Meyer, who went 7-0, enhanced the expectations — some would call it entitlement — to win The Game every year.

From 2001 until 2019, Ohio State lost to Michigan only twice, in 2004 and in 2011, the year when Tressel was fired on Memorial Day amid an NCAA investigation, and the Buckeyes would finish 6-7 under Luke Fickell. Ohio State has been on the wrong end of the rivalry before. The Buckeyes won only three times between 1985 and 2000 and went 0-5-1 between 1988 and 1993.

But some say the tenor around the game has been amplified, especially after last month’s fracas. A day after the latest Michigan loss, Bjork had to issue a statement to The Columbus Dispatch confirming Day would remain Ohio State’s coach through the playoff.

“The expectations have always been there,” Smith said. “The thing that’s changed a lot is the narrative around the Michigan game, and the win-or-bust type of mentality. Ross Bjork made it clear that it’s one of the challenges, and he’s right, the fact that people have platforms to express themselves. The reality is that the visceral type of behavior has become pretty challenging.”

According to several recent studies, including one from AL.com and Samford University in 2023, Ohio State boasts the largest fan base in college football. Within it are different subgroups.

“There’s fans and there’s fanatics,” Tressel said. “Fans are the ones that, if you don’t do well, they kind of feel bad with you, and then the fanatics are the ones that if you don’t do well, they’re mad at you. And of course the ones that are mad at you are louder. The ones that are disappointed, just like you are, aren’t on the internet pounding out messages.”

THOSE WHO HAVE coached at Ohio State aren’t blindsided by the elements there. Whether they’re from Ohio, like Tressel and Meyer; coming from programs outside of the state, like John Cooper; or getting promoted, like Day, they all accept the benefits and the expectations that come with one of the highest-profile coaching jobs in sports.

“If you don’t screw up, you’re going to win most of the games you play,” said Cooper, who went 111-43-4 as Buckeyes coach from 1988 to 2000.

No coach is going to win them all, though. Cooper led Ohio State to seven consecutive AP top 20 finishes from 1992 to 1998, twice finishing No. 2 and ranking No. 6 in 1995. But after a 14-10 mark in his final two seasons, punctuated by poor records against Michigan (2-10-1) and in bowl games (3-8), Cooper was fired.

“You walk down the hall and every coach here at Ohio State — Woody, Earle [Bruce], me, Tress — all of us are in the College Football Hall of Fame,” Cooper said. “All of us have been looking for a new job, too.”

The difference now, which Day has emphasized in the lead-up to the Tennessee playoff opener, is that the expanded CFP gives new life to coaches and teams that didn’t reach all of their goals during the regular season.

“It’s a brand-new start,” Day said. “And I think that’s what our guys have recognized now, the fact that they’ve earned the opportunity to play in the playoffs.”

When coaching Ohio State, Cooper never thought about what a playoff would be like because one didn’t exist. He would have loved the opportunity in seasons like 1996, when a loss to Michigan at Ohio Stadium prevented the Buckeyes from overtaking Florida, which also lost that day to Florida State but won a rematch with the Seminoles in the Sugar Bowl to claim the national title.

The Buckeyes beat Arizona State in the Rose Bowl but finished No. 2.

“Heck yeah, you’d love to have another shot,” Cooper said.

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Day landed the Ohio State job under unusual circumstances. He had served as the team’s acting head coach for the first three games of the 2018 season, while Meyer was suspended, and then took over permanently after Meyer retired for health reasons.

Although Smith loved Day’s potential, he also recognized that Ohio State would be the 39-year-old’s first head coaching opportunity. The school hadn’t hired a first-time head coach since Paul Bixler in 1946, although he had led basketball teams at Akron and Colgate. Bixler lasted only one season, stepping down to take the same job at Colgate, citing the pressure he faced at Ohio State.

“This is his first head job, so you’re learning every year,” Smith said of Day. “We didn’t talk about it in detail, but I knew it in my head, and so I kept that in my perspective as the leader, trying to help him. I think he’s really developed into an outstanding head coach.”

Day has an inventory of experience to draw upon, including a very similar situation in 2022 to the one he currently faces. That fall, Ohio State also lost to a short-handed Michigan team as a favorite, at Ohio Stadium. The Buckeyes watched Michigan win a second straight Big Ten title. But then, Ohio State sneaked into the CFP as an at-large selection after USC fell to Utah in the Pac-12 championship game.

“We felt defeated because of that game,” said Cleveland Browns safety Ronnie Hickman, an All-Big Ten performer in 2022 for Ohio State, of the Michigan loss. “It meant so much to us, but they [the CFP selection committee] gave us another chance. So we realized that we could either sulk in this loss or make the most of the opportunity that we got.”

As Ohio State prepared to play Georgia in a CFP semifinal, Day told ESPN then that the Michigan loss had left him “calloused,” but described the playoff as “a second lease on life.”

The Buckeyes responded with one of their best games under Day, displaying a newfound aggressiveness that helped them control most of the game against Georgia. As a former Ohio State assistant said, “We were in attack mode.”

After throwing interceptions on Ohio State’s final two possessions against Michigan, quarterback C.J. Stroud rebounded with arguably the finest performance of his college career. Facing a loaded Georgia defense that would set a record with five players selected in the first round of the 2023 NFL draft, Stroud passed for 348 yards and four touchdowns.

But a series of mishaps — officiating calls, wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr.’s concussion after a controversial hit in the end zone, Day settling for a long field goal attempt for the win — led to a 42-41 loss.

If Ohio State had held on, it would have been favored to beat TCU in the national title game.

“We should have won that game,” Smith said. “They can’t fine me now, but there were a couple bad calls in that game, one that was atrocious. But you saw the kids and you saw the coaches put everything into chasing the dream, and I was really proud of them. Because they could have folded, and they didn’t. That’s the beauty of Ohio State.”

THE PRESSURE THAT Day has endured has spilled over to his players.

Before the season, senior wide receiver Emeka Egbuka bluntly described the legacies attached to him and other veterans, and their mission to change how they will be remembered.

“Nobody on this team has won a big game in their career at Ohio State,” he said. “We just haven’t done it. It sucks to say, but that’s the reality. We don’t really have anything that counts, anything that matters. … We’re really locked in on getting to our goals this year.”

After the Michigan loss in 2022, Stroud stood before reporters and admitted that he would be remembered as a player who never beat Michigan or won the Big Ten. “I just have to eat it, man,” he said then.

“Playing there isn’t easy,” Stroud, now a star for the Houston Texans, said this week. “It’s a lot of pressure, having a really big fan base — and the best fan base in the land. But it’s not easy. Honestly, it prepared me for this position.”

Tight end Cade Stover, Stroud’s teammate with the Texans and at Ohio State, added: “The quarterback at Ohio State will have the most pressure of any position, any athlete in the country. No question. … I don’t think it’s even close.”

Former Ohio State QB Kyle McCord was the No. 31 overall recruit in the country three years ago and finally got his chance to start last season after Stroud was selected with the second pick in the draft. But after winning his first 11 games, which included engineering a late game-winning drive at Notre Dame, McCord struggled in a loss to the Wolverines.

Michigan went on to the Big Ten title game — and the national championship — and McCord told ESPN’s Andrea Adelson that he was informed Ohio State would go in a different direction at quarterback. Nine days after the Michigan game, McCord entered the portal and ended up transferring to Syracuse.

“In a perfect world, we win, go undefeated, win the national championship and I’m probably not in this position, probably not here,” McCord told ESPN. “But everything happens for a reason.”

This year, McCord led the FBS with 4,326 passing yards and helped the Orange to just their second nine-win season since 2001. In the regular-season finale, McCord propelled Syracuse to its largest comeback in program history, as the Orange rallied from 21 down to stun sixth-ranked Miami. Afterward, McCord was asked about outdueling Heisman finalist Cam Ward on the same day Ohio State scored just 10 points in its loss to Michigan.

“Everything comes full circle,” McCord answered with a smirk. Coach Fran Brown repeatedly said he would send Day champagne for letting the quarterback go.

A month after McCord entered the transfer portal, the Buckeyes landed Will Howard, a coveted quarterback transfer who had helped Kansas State to the 2022 Big 12 championship. Howard ranked in the top five in QBR all year and brought an edge to the Buckeyes. After an emphatic rout of fifth-ranked Indiana the game before Michigan, Howard simulated stomping out a cigarette, trolling Hoosiers coach Curt Cignetti.

Yet against Michigan, Howard struggled. He tossed two interceptions, as the Buckeyes failed to score in the second half for the first time in 13 years. Afterward, all Howard could do was apologize for losing The Game.

“It was hard. I’m not going to lie. … It sucked,” Howard said this week. “It was terrible for all of us. Terrible loss. But man, we can’t let it beat us twice. We can’t.”

CHIP KELLY HAS known Day since he recruited him to play quarterback at New Hampshire 26 years ago. In February, Day recruited Kelly to leave his post as UCLA’s head coach and become his offensive coordinator. Day surrendered playcalling duties to Kelly with hopes it would give the Buckeyes a jolt offensively. Before he coached the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers in the NFL, Kelly turned Oregon into college football’s top scoring offense.

But against Michigan, Kelly stuck with an ineffective running game, while Jeremiah Smith, the Big Ten Freshman and Receiver of the Year, had only one catch for 3 yards on just two targets after halftime, both in the third quarter.

Still, the brunt of the criticism fell on Day. As Michigan took a knee to end the game, “F— Ryan Day” chants came pouring down from the Ohio State student section.

“He understands the weight of what this position is, being the head coach at Ohio State,” Kelly said this week. “It’s different than probably some other places. But I think Ryan’s done a great job with it. You always look to your leader and how does the leader handle it?”

Day said they’ll learn from the Michigan loss, but they’re focused on the playoff and Tennessee.

“We care a lot, and we know what it means to Ohio State to win football games around here,” he said. “We understand what that [Michigan] game means. But ultimately that’s behind us. … And we’re going to play our tails off on Saturday night.”

ESPN reporters DJ Bien-Aime and Daniel Oyefusi contributed to this story.