Ryan Day took over a program that had been 16-1 against Michigan under Urban Meyer and Jim Tressel, that was indisputably a top four program in the sport coming into the 2019 season, and he absolutely squandered it. He has been embarrassed in back-to-back games against Michigan and will enter 2023 with maybe a handful of players on his roster who have ever beaten the Wolverines, and maybe none, depending on the NFL choices of Tommy Eichenberg, Steele Chambers, Dawand Jones, Enokk Vimahi and Cade Stover. Day has ceded Ohio State’s two-decade long stranglehold atop the Big Ten to Michigan and shifted the paradigm of the rivalry to a status it has not had since the 20th century. He will, in all likelihood, miss the College Football Playoff for back-to-back seasons. His teams – and, perhaps more accurately, him personally – have laid down and quit repeatedly. He has been either blown out or physically manhandled four times in the last 26 games: twice against Michigan, in the Horseshoe against Oregon, and on the national title stage against Alabama. His personnel choices and game management have frequently baffled knowing onlookers.

To put it more succinctly than my laundry list of complaints, Jim Harbaugh was right that Ryan Day was born on third base and he has totally failed to advance his position beyond that point. If anything, he has regressed and moved backwards as the Ohio State program will go nearly four full calendar years without beating its rival. It will watch them go to the playoff in back-to-back seasons as they play in a meaningless exhibition game.

The 45-23 embarrassment in Ohio Stadium, Michigan’s first victory in the Horseshoe in 20 years, was the culmination of four years of Ryan Day having the opportunity to take over a Ferrari of a program and improve upon it. He has had four years of recruiting, player development, scheme designs, staff hires, and culture-building. He wholly owns this program after taking it over from Urban Meyer and its failures and foibles are completely on his head. Four years that culminated in a home blowout in the biggest rivalry in all of sports, tied for the worst loss the Buckeyes have taken in Columbus since 1946.

Ohio State’s standard as a program, simply put, is to beat Michigan, win the Big Ten, and play for national championships. Ryan Day has entirely failed to meet that standard. His coaching, his preparation, and his player development are not living up to the standard expected by the Buckeyes and the coaches that have come before him. When Ryan Day has been challenged by the spotlight of The Game, he has wilted and failed to meet the moment twice. He has created errors of his own making that have failed his players and left them sat at home rather than playing for championships as they’ve come to expect.

So, all of this begs the question: Will Ohio State actually fire Ryan Day this offseason?

Of course, the answer is no, they almost certainly will not. Gene Smith is heavily risk averse and will lean on Day’s win-loss record instead of the impending doom and failure we can all see coming. Ohio State foolishly rewarded Day with a contract extension in the offseason, for completely unclear reasons. Friendly media in Columbus circulated rumors that Ohio State had better pay up or else the NFL would come calling – God, if only they had – despite the fact that Day had already received a contract extension after the 2019 season. Of course, he followed that deal up with blowout losses to Alabama and Michigan and a manhandling loss to Oregon.

He is going to lose to Michigan again next season, on the road, with a new starting quarterback and several critical contributors moving on, with no self-reflection on the same failures he’s demonstrated as a coach three seasons in a row. That, in my opinion, will finally actually get him fired. Or at least I pray it will. I don’t care if Ryan Day is a nice boy off the field or a good corporate sponsorship monkey who runs a “clean program” or whatever losers say about him, he is constitutionally incapable of hanging with the big boys in this sport and preparing for a game on the biggest stages. He turtles and folds whenever he’s given the chance to play in a competitive game and makes baffling decisions that take his team out of games. He is a giant bearded baby without a competitive spirit in his heart who is a loser at the core of his being. He will never get better and he will never solve these problems, because that would require internal reflection and learning that he is fundamentally incapable of.

Anyway, I’m going to stop bitching about him for a minute – feel free to stay tuned to, you know, anything I write or record for the next 12 months for more of that – and paint some coaching search scenarios. I will caveat this by saying there is one name I pray they contact this offseason.

Mike Vrabel, Tennessee Titans

Look, as far as I can recall, there are two NFL head coaches who have willingly left the league to go back to the college level (Nick Saban and Bobby Petrino) and neither was in a position nearly as strong as Vrabel’s in Nashville. Only four coaches in the NFL have a better winning percentage than the Ohio State alum from 2018, when he took over in Tennessee, to present. Vrabel is an Ohio native and former Buckeye All-American who was one of the rare John Cooper players who actually beat Michigan in college. He is unquestionably one of the toughest and most beloved coaches by NFL consensus. If you want to fix a program that does not currently embrace the importance of the rivalry, that is mentally weak and unprepared for major games, and that has failed to respond to major challenges, who better for that job than Vrabel?

It is a different question entirely to ask if he would actually leave Tennessee and come to Columbus, but Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith should be back-channeling to that effect like a Hillary Clinton diplomatic aide trying to arm moderate rebels in a destabilized state immediately. This is the one candidate that the Buckeyes should immediately jettison Ryan Day for if Vrabel is willing to say yes. The pitch would not be based on money or job security, but on seeing if Vrabel is willing to come home and get Ohio State back to where it needs to be in this rivalry. I have little faith this actually happens, but my god it would be a coup for this program and change things for Ohio State overnight.

Luke Fickell, Cincinnati Bearcats

Can’t get Vrabel? How about his college roommate, a fellow former Buckeyes All-American and Ohio native, and the only coach in the last 40 years who’s had a Group of Five program playing for a national championship in the postseason? Luke Fickell is as Ohio as it gets: he is the former undefeated state heavyweight champ in wrestling, a four-year starter for the Buckeyes, and someone who spent 20 of the last 31 years working or playing at Ohio State. He led the Bearcats to a 44-7 record from 2018-2021 with four consecutive ranked finishes, two conference titles, back-to-back top ten finishes, and a College Football Playoff appearance. It is one of the most impressive stretches of any program in the country, let alone the fact that he did it in the G5.

There is perhaps no one alive who understands this rivalry more than Luke Fickell. He has 14 – FOURTEEN! – pairs of Gold Pants for scalping the Wolverines. Only Woody Hayes, with his 16, has ever had more in the history of Ohio State’s program. I have concerns over some of his offensive coordinator hires and wonder if he would have the appropriate offensive philosophies for the modern era, but he is an incredible coach who lives and breathes Buckeye football. If Vrabel can’t or won’t say yes, Fickell is the only other name that needs to be on this list. He would crawl from Cincinnati to Columbus to get this job and I have no doubt that he would excel.

That’s it. That’s the entire list. No one else needs to be considered. Not a wide receivers coach, not some bum at Iowa State who occasionally creates nice little upsets, not a random Ohio native with no connection to the rivalry, not washed up Urban Meyer. Go get Vrabel or Fickell and fix this bullshit.