There are three goals at Ohio State: win national titles, win the Big Ten and beat Michigan. If you accomplish all three, you become a legend. If you only accomplish two of them, you’re beloved. If you only accomplish one of them, it better be beating Michigan.
Ryan Day hasn’t accomplished any of those goals for three years running. That’s why a coach who has gone 56-7 as coach of The Ohio State Buckeyes and 40-3 in conference play finds himself on the receiving end of a lot of anger and frustration from the Ohio State fanbase. And none of this should come as a surprise.
I said this would be the case last year. The night of last season’s 45-23 loss to Michigan, I said on The Cover 3 Podcast reaction show that if Ryan Day and Ohio State failed to beat Michigan for the third straight time and didn’t win the Big Ten, he’d be in trouble. The pitchforks, which were already being polished, would finally come out.
I also said none of it would make sense, but things making sense and the sport of college football don’t find themselves in the vicinity of one another too often. While the SEC has developed a reputation of fan derangement (commonly referred to as “passion”), it is not the sole possessor of delusion amongst its constituency.
A sane person looks at the situation and points out Ryan Day has lost seven games. Those losses have come to Clemson (2019 CFP semifinal), Alabama (2020 title game), Oregon (2021 regular season), Georgia (2022 CFP semifinal) and the three losses to Michigan. Oregon is the “worst” loss of the bunch, and the Ducks reached the Pac-12 Championship Game that season. That sane person says three playoff appearances and a Rose Bowl in your first four years as coach are incredible accomplishments and points out the Buckeyes were a missed 50-yard field goal away from likely winning a national title last season. A sane person says these things. A college football fan says, “Yeah, but they’ve lost to Michigan three times in a row, stupid.”
Neither one is wrong.
Day certainly realizes this. It’s evident by everything that the Buckeyes have done in 2023. Following last season’s loss, Day initially planned to give up play-calling duties to Brian Hartline. It was short-lived, but while Day continued to call plays, there was a noticeable difference in Ohio State’s offense this season, and not only because C.J. Stroud was gone.
Plenty of detractors felt Ohio State’s…
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