Ryan Day Really Might Get Fired Now
Ryan Day was already in a unique position. Entering this year, Ohio State’s coach since 2019 was the most successful failure in the sport, a man who justifiably had fans after his job despite a record of double-digit wins every season. On Saturday, Day shifted from the most successful failure in college football to something slightly different: a total failure who still has a chance to hit it big. In a few weeks, Ohio State will be a national champion, be on the hunt for a new head coach, or—least likely, in my opinion—scrambling to explain to its fan base why it’s keeping the underachieving coach it has now.
The Buckeyes lost Saturday for the fourth year in a row to Michigan. The final score was 13–10. Michigan players planted their flag at midfield at Ohio Stadium, and Ohio State players started a big brawl with them, ceding the moral high ground after already losing the game. Each of this streak’s losses to Michigan has been crushing, but this was the worst. The past three came against national championship–contending (and one national championship–winning) Michigans. This one came against a Wolverine husk that entered the game at 6–5 and had not beaten a good team all season. In one afternoon, the Buckeyes let their rivals turn an awful season into a pretty respectable step-back year and left themselves in disarray.
The new 12-team College Football Playoff makes this an unprecedented situation. Ohio State, the bluest of blue bloods, has a coach who is almost certainly not up to the two jobs an Ohio State coach holds. Historically, one job was to beat Michigan, and doing that would almost always mean Ohio State was in the hunt for its other job, winning the national title. Day’s success outside these two jobs has essentially never mattered, and will not matter after this season, to his legacy at Ohio State. Now Ohio State cannot beat Michigan, but the expanded playoff decouples one job from another. The Buckeyes knocked themselves out of the Big Ten championship game with Saturday’s loss, but they are still a lock for the playoff, which means Day is about to do one of two things. He will get it together and salvage himself by winning it all this year, or he will leave no doubt in the minds of most Ohio State fans that he has failed and will never get it done. By that point, it would be reckless for Ohio State not to fire him, though the school has no reason to be public about it.
