For as miserable as Ryan Day’s latest failure in the most important rivalry in college football felt, I went to bed on the last Saturday night of November feeling like I finally had some catharsis.
It was unfathomable to me that anybody could watch the repeated failures of the last four seasons in Ohio State’s football program — followed by the punctuation of perhaps the worst, most embarrassing loss in living memory of this storied rivalry — and come out on the other side still believing it was possible for Day to be the answer for the Buckeyes.
Nonetheless, we are here, forced to talk with these subhuman freaks defending Day as if they have the mental faculties to be respected. We’re going to have to engage with them to finish the job.
Ryan Day was simply walked down by a 6-5 Michigan team that came into Columbus as three-touchdown underdogs, missing two of their three best players.
That Michigan team didn’t do anything different or execute any better than it had all season. The Wolverines produced just 62 passing yards and were somehow even worse on the ground by success rate. They fired their offensive coordinator less than 72 hours after that game.
The only answer that anyone could provide – even the most chest-thumping, proud, optimistic Michigan fans – is that Ryan Day pissed down his leg. You could watch him revert back to all of his worst habits and coaching traits in real time.
Day’s disorganization led to a critical procedural penalty coming out of a timeout that more or less ended the game, handing Michigan a first down inside Ohio State’s 10-yard line after the two minute warning. Of course, Day once again failed to manage his timeouts correctly and misunderstood how to use them prior to the two minute warning just moments prior. His horrendous special teams unit directly handed Michigan a field goal on a shanked punt, missed two field goals, and likely cost Ohio State more points than that when Trey Henderson forgot to field a fucking kickoff and started off the second half at the six-yard line rather than the 25.
All of this, of course, hasn’t even touched on the fact that he very obviously took playcalling duties back from Chip Kelly after all of the hay that was made about how he matured as a coach by bringing in his mentor as offensive coordinator. Day played directly into the only path that could possibly yield a Michigan win, repeatedly running at the strength of their defense with an injured and outright bad offensive line. The Ohio State rushing attack was stopped for two yards or fewer on 16 of 26 rushing attempts and yielded just a 19-percent success rate, compared to the passing attack’s 45-percent.
The jaw-droppingly incompetent (or inept, as his best player seemed to approve of calling it) gameplan and execution laid bare the obvious truth of Day’s relationship to Ohio State’s most important game: it doesn’t matter how good or bad Michigan is, how good or bad Ohio State is, or how talented the players on the field are; he is going to find a way to lose. He just faced the worst Michigan team he is ever going to face and did it on his own field and he completely failed.
There’s no pointing to poor defensive hires anymore. Day had an elite defensive coordinator in year three, a full five defensive coaches on staff, and a roster full of returning seniors projected as NFL talents on the defense. They held Michigan to 13 points – including just one scoring drive longer than three yards – and forced two turnovers.
The problem for Ryan Day, in this rivalry, is mental. You could see it on his shellshocked face when he watched his players sprint away from Carmen Ohio to go fight Michigan’s roster and prevent them from planting their flag, meandering over with no sense of urgency and asking his staffer “What happened?” He has no fucking clue what to do here and he is realizing how far out of his depth he is, more by the day.
You can see it with Day’s lack of control over the program overall. He didn’t even try to take control of his team and manage the fight; he didn’t even try to see what happened! All of this while Sherrone Moore turned behind the bench to scream at Ohio State fans that he owns them before sprinting over to separate his players from Ohio State’s.
He’s allowed a megachurch grift and a series of increasingly embarrassing proselytizing podcasts to turn his program into a laughingstock. Episodes of The Walk featuring Ohio State players saying God wanted them to lose or that Michigan isn’t their enemy (and, more or less, that rivalry games are a tool of the devil) would be enough in their own right. But, of course, this is Day and it has to be poured on thicker.
Players skip Carmen Ohio for their prayer circles with other teams. They take recruits to Rock City, a megachurch based in Columbus with multiple locations throughout Ohio – a church that Mark Pantoni, associate athletic director of player personnel, attends and often supports on his social media.
Even if you step away from the religious element, Day did nothing to solve a two and a half year long feud between his defensive coordinator and defensive line coach. That feud crippled Ohio State’s ability to generate pressure repeatedly in big games over the last three seasons and hamstrung some of the most talented defensive line recruits in program history. He displays no leadership or control over any part of his program.
It is beyond obvious that now is the time to end this farce.
Day’s Ohio State went all in this year. No one can argue this. Forget all of the “20 million dollar roster” talk on national television, his own players talked about “natty or bust”, guaranteed wins against Michigan, and talked about the unfinished business they came back to handle this year. They convinced nearly every major senior from his most talented recruiting class, 2021, to come back to the team and added multiple stars from the transfer portal. They faced the weakest Michigan team in recent memory in Columbus and had everything in their hands to cleanse themselves of their demons.
They couldn’t do it. He’s never going to do it. It is never going to happen for Ryan Day.
Despite all of this and that feeling of catharsis I had deep down knowing the conclusion was obvious, the Stockholm Syndrome portion of the fanbase has somehow rallied. Both fans and media alike have rallied to his defense and talked about winning a couple playoff games being enough to save his job. We have to fight back against this stuff in no uncertain terms.
Even if we totally discount the fact that Ohio State has to move on because the end result of this – more years of misery, failure, and finding new ways to come up short – is abundantly obvious, I can make the logistical argument for you too.
There will never be a better or easier time to move on from Day. His supporters will point to the potential fallout and roster turnover generally, the individual loss of several returning high-profile talents, the expense from his buyout, and the idea that they couldn’t possibly find a better replacement because of his record to date. We’re going to address each of these.
The timing and the available candidates are the most critical aspects here.
Who can Ohio State get?
This question of “Who can Ohio State get?” is, to me, obviously ridiculous. It’s predicated on Day’s 63-10 record (.863 winning percentage), six consecutive top ten finishes (potentially, pending 2024), and a national title game appearance as head coach. When you weigh in the lack of rivalry wins, Big Ten success (just two conference championships), or playoff success, you’re essentially just pointing to his regular season record.
Urban Meyer’s seven-year record was a sterling 86-9 and even the stale final four years of his career after the national championship featured a .889 winning percentage, two conference championships, four top ten finishes, and four consecutive wins over Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan.
Jim Tressel’s final six seasons featured a nearly identical 66-11 record (.857) with six consecutive wins over Michigan, three outright Big Ten championships (and would have played in all six conference title games had they existed), two national title game appearances, and six consecutive top ten finishes.
The last six year period in Ohio State history that you could find that is definitively worse than Ryan Day’s 2019-2024 run would have to be the final five years of John Cooper and Jim Tressel’s first season in Columbus. That run saw the Buckeyes go just 53-20 (.726) with a 2-4 record against Michigan, two Big Ten championships, and two top two finishes. Despite the regular season flaws, the actual end-of-season results and hardware are not very far off from what Day has produced in Columbus.
This era is just mirroring the end of the Tressel era – the frustrations of a stubbornness in coaching style, staff building, and a refusal to adapt producing increasingly diminishing returns – except those teams were still able to consistently get it done in the rivalry game. Tressel, in his final six seasons, produced a similarly miserable 0-6 record against year-end AP Poll top five opponents. That number is very clsoe to Day’s 1-6 performance in those games to date, final results for this year’s Oregon and Penn State teams and any potential playoff opponents pending.
I can’t say that I understand the particular attachment to this regime or the idea that it can’t be improved upon. The results aren’t particularly impressive in the context of recent Ohio State history. They’ve clearly been passed up in the Big Ten by Michigan and Oregon, they trail behind Georgia and Texas in the SEC, and it’s not like Alabama is far from returning to grace with the way they recruit. Ohio State is just another team in the pack. It’s not distinguishing itself in the program’s recent history or in the national context.
And you also have to ask yourself why people feel like Day himself is responsible for whatever level of success they feel the program is producing. Even if you ignore the fact that he was the recipient of the most advantageous internal promotion since Dennis Erickson at Miami in the 1980s, what is his track record prior to Columbus – or since, obviously – to show he was a special, unmissable hire?
Day had two seasons in Columbus as a quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator prior to being elevated to head coach, working alongside veteran hand Kevin Wilson to design the offense and handling playcalling duties. During that time, he indisputably improved and modernized Ohio State’s passing attack. That’s great, it’s been nice and it was needed given how retrograde Urban Meyer’s read option-driven offense had become. W e could quibble about how badly Day fucked up the decision of Joe Burrow versus the late, great Dwayne Haskins and how what we learned later about Haskins’ practice and film study habits illuminates Day’s lack of attention to detail, but I’ll save it for another time.
What is special about Ryan Day’s career?
Mostly, what I want to focus on is just how thin Day’s CV was prior to that point.
Day spent eight of his 15 year coaching career (prior to Ohio State) as an assistant at Boston College, including two years as offensive coordinator in 2013 and 2014. His offenses in those two years were 49th and 68th, respectively, in SP+ in those two seasons, having finished 90th in the season before he arrived.
His detour to the NFL to work as quarterbacks coach under Chip Kelly in 2015 and 2016 produced nothing particularly special to me. His two starting quarterbacks – Sam Bradford and Colin Kaepernick – ranked no. 18 and no. 17 in his seasons with them by passer rating and his passing offenses finished no. 22 and no. 23 in the same mark overall. Nothing to write home about.
The first time Day ever received a promotion from the program he was already working for, in his entire career, was when Urban Meyer designated him as the primary offensive coordinator over Kevin Wilson in 2018 and then again when he was given the head coaching job. Of course, none of us need a reminder about how Urban Meyer’s staff management was in his final four seasons in Columbus.
This is not Jim Tressel, marching into Columbus on the back of four FCS national championships, or Urban Meyer with his two titles at Florida. This is a journeyman position coach with three total years of offensive coordinator experience prior to coming to Columbus who had never produced an elite offense or a single NFL player as a college position coach (or coordinator) before being handed Ohio State-caliber talent. Day was a nobody, frankly.
The historical precedents at other bluebloods are not good for Day
By my count, the true royalty programs in college football – Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Florida State, Georgia, LSU, Miami (Fla.), Michigan, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Penn State, Tennessee, Texas, and USC* – have collectively hired 25 coaches who received at least six years in their jobs. Ryan Day, as you all know, is approaching the end of his sixth year as coach.
*Sorry if this list excludes new money programs like Clemson or Oregon or all-hat-no-cattle freaks like Texas A&M, not really my problem
Of those 24 coaches, excluding Ryan Day:
- 9 failed to ever win a national championship: John Cooper (Ohio State), Frank Solich (Nebraska), Tommy Tubberville (Auburn), Mark Richt (Georgia), Bo Pelini (Nebraska), Brian Kelly (Notre Dame), Gus Malzahn (Auburn), James Franklin (Penn State), and Clay Helton (USC)
- 8 coaches won a single national title in their first six years and then never again: Phil Fulmer (Tennessee), Lloyd Carr (Michigan), Bob Stoops (Oklahoma), Larry Coker (Miami), Jim Tressel (Ohio State), Les Miles (LSU), Jimbo Fisher (Texas A&M), Urban Meyer (Ohio State)
- 2 coaches won multiple national titles in their first six years and then left of their own volition: Pete Carroll (USC) and Urban Meyer (Florida)
- 2 coaches have multiple titles, with those titles being split before and after the six-year mark: Nick Saban (Alabama) and Kirby Smart (Georgia)
That leaves us with just three coaches who failed to win a championship in their first six years and then pulled one off after the fact.
Jim Harbaugh is the first example that most of you likely thought of. He won a title in year nine at Michigan after struggling mightily under the thumb of Urban Meyer in his early years. He had, of course, already successfully run Stanford and the San Francisco 49ers into title contention and earned recognition as the AP NFL Coach of the Year.
The other two are Mack Brown’s run at Texas and Steve Spurrier’s Florida tenure.
Spurrier took over a Florida program that was basically mediocre before his arrival – two top five finishes in history prior to him showing up – and won a title in year seven after losing a national title game to Nebraska in year six. He was steadily building that program year-over-year, nearly from scratch, peaking in a title game appearance and then a title.
Brown was more meandering and won his title in year eight at Texas. He is probably the best example for those optimistic about Ryan Day: a nice guy with a country club atmosphere in his program who was really good at recruiting but couldn’t coach to save his ass. He lost five straight rivalry games to Oklahoma from 2000-04 before breaking and beating a mediocre 8-4 Sooners squad in 2005 en route to a national title.
The difference between Day and Brown, however, is that Brown already had 16 years of experience as a head coach before showing up at Texas. These three late-blooming title winners all had prior head coaching experience, averaging 11 years in charge of Division I or pro football programs between them. Harbaugh and Spurrier were both at their alma maters and had far more patience and buy-in because of that.
Six of the 11 (.545) first-time coaches at these programs won national championships. Nine of the 14 coaches (.643) who had previous head coaching experience did the same. It’s not a statistically significant enough difference to draw any conclusions, likely because most of the truly awful first-time head coaches are gone before they reach the six-year mark. The average timeline for those six winning coaches to get their first title was 3.7 years.
Most of the time, with these hires, they’re going to bite as pups if they’ll bite at all. Most of the guys who took a while to get to the mountaintop – Harbaugh, Brown, Smart, Spurrier – had to either rebuild a proud program that had fallen on tough times or had to build it from scratch in Spurrier’s case.
The most generous possible upside for Day, assuming he doesn’t go on a Linsanity run beginning with Tennessee, is Mack Brown, a coach who won one title and appeared in one other championship game in 16 years at the most advantaged program in all of college football. What could go possibly wrong with a shockingly similar, but less experienced, coach at the second most advantaged program in all of college football?
Focus on talent retention is misguided
There is also never going to be a better time to move on from Day from a talent retention and roster turnover standpoint. It’s become a key talking point from the Day defenders to fearmonger about how many star players Ohio State would lose if he were fired now and how it would decimate the roster.
I simply don’t agree with it, for one thing. The Buckeyes will already have their roster decimated because they had 15 seniors come back to Columbus, every single one of whom had a starting role. Left tackle Josh Simmons declaring for the NFL Draft makes that 16 – SIXTEEN! – starters gone.
What else is left to lose? You’re already going to have a complete overhaul of both lines of scrimmage, a new quarterback, and most of your back seven outside of Caleb Downs and Sonny Styles. Are you going to keep a coach you don’t have confidence in because you want to keep Davison Igbinosun? Are we being fucking serious?
Also, how much of that roster talent is individually loyal to Day? I suppose it’s possible you lose Air Noland and Julian Sayin, and that would suck, but then it’s a good thing that you have five-star Ohio native Tavien St. Clair walking into the program and one of the most attractive wide receiver rooms in college football for any prospective quarterback transfer.
What possible incoming coach would want to get rid of dynamite recruiters and Buckeye alums like Brian Hartline, Tim Walton, and James Laurinaitis? Do you think Jeremiah Smith, Carnell Tate, or Brandon Inniss care about who the head coach is if Hartline is on staff? I’ve already spoken to sources with South Florida Express who assure me that they don’t. The only other staff member besides those three that I feel motivated to keep is Carlos Locklyn, but running back coaches are mostly interchangeable.
Far more important than the question of how much talent will be lost or retained is WHO THE FUCK CARES ABOUT HOW MUCH TALENT THEY HAVE ON THE ROSTER IF THEY CAN’T ACCOMPLISH ANY OF THEIR GOALS WITH THAT TALENT?
Recruiting is a means to the end of on-field success – beating Michigan, winning the Big Ten, and winning national championships – and not the end in and of itself. I don’t care how much 247Sports or the NFL Draft scouts like Ohio State players if those players aren’t wearing gold pants around their necks they leave Columbus. It does not matter what they are ranked.
Part of this is because of Day’s lack of focus on player acquisition – I’ve discussed this before but he signs nearly a full recruiting class of players less than peers at Georgia and Alabama over a five year period – and lack of focus on the right areas. Additionally, with seven recruiting classes in the fold now for each, Day is signing just 6.3 combined top 500-ranked offensive and defensive linemen per class, compared to 7.3 per year for Urban Meyer. That doesn’t sound like a huge difference, but it adds up over the years and it’s apparent in the results.
That’s what the (blood) money is for!
People will also cite the allegedly massive buyout, a sum of $37M.
My first answer to this is, once again, a simple “Who the fuck cares?” What is the point of being the richest program in college football – $279M in revenue per year per Sportico – if you’re afraid to quibble over a few million dollars? What is the point of signing the massive TV deals with three different national networks and destroying rivalries and traditions across the sport? What is the point of taking vast sums of (alleged) pedophile blood money from families like the Wexners and Kesslers if you aren’t going to spend it? Why do we have to suffer all of these indignities and cavort with these fucking freaks if it’s not going to be used to make the most critical change a program can make?
Of course, that $37M number being cited isn’t really true. It’s not all due up front and it will be offset by future salaries earned by Ryan Day at another coaching job (surely these defenders think he’ll get another job?).
Critical to remember, as well, is that you’re not facing a question between $37M and $0. Day’s buyout would still be in the mid-20s next season when you inevitably have to fire him then, because his roster is only going to get worse and his path will only become more difficult. Do people really believe that a roster replacing at least 16 starters is going to go into Ann Arbor, play a better Michigan team, and win with this guy as head coach? Are you going to tolerate keeping him after five straight Michigan losses?
You’re bitching about $10-15M for an athletic department that makes nearly 30 times that amount each year and will have the costs handled in large part by boosters.
Let’s not forget, as a critical part of all of this, is that you obviously cannot just bring Day back and allow him to keep the same staff totally intact. So you’d have to pay (presumably) multiple staff buyouts and allow Day to bring in new position coaches to save face. Do we think that won’t lead to transfers or turnover? Do we think that whenever he’s inevitably fired after 2025 that it will be good for the program to have position units that have had three position coaches in three seasons?
Even if you still aren’t quite over the fence on the idea that Day has to go now and any day longer that he spends employed in Columbus is an injustice, let’s just boil it down to simple logistics and opportunity cost.
Mike Vrabel is our answer
Right now, today, Ohio State alum Mike Vrabel is available to become head coach. He does not have any kind of buyout and he has spent this year just a couple hours up the road in Berea, attending Ohio State sporting events and biding his time for the right offer for a head coaching job.
Vrabel was the 2021 NFL Coach of the Year for the Tennessee Titans and produced three playoff appearances in his first four seasons, including an AFC Championship appearance. This is a three-time Super Bowl champion, former All Pro, two-time All-American, and three-time All-Big Ten player, in the Hall of Fame for both the Buckeyes and Patriots. He had a meteoric rise through the NFL coaching ranks after spending three seasons on staff at Ohio State from 2011-13 and has been linked to damn near every NFL opening in the offseason.
I don’t know if Vrabel prefers college football to the NFL, nor do I care. I know that he is open to listening to Ohio State, among other potential offers. I know that he wants full personnel control of a roster after a power struggle with Titans’ management, an elusive thing to have for an NFL coach. I know that there is nobody alive who is a better hire for Ohio State right now than Vrabel and I know that this is their one and only chance for the Buckeyes to get him.
It’s impossible to say if Vrabel will accept the Ohio State job if offered. Obviously, he has incredibly strong roots in Ohio, played here, coached here, and has come back to the state when given the chance. But if Ohio State does not get him to Columbus this offseason, he will not be available for another year.
The Bears, Saints, and Jets are already open jobs. Many expect the Jaguars, Cowboys, Giants, and Raiders to open up soon. Both Ohio coaches have been under pressure. Vrabel is going to be among the most coveted candidates for this job, if not the very top option for several of them.
You will hear people talk about hiring Matt Campbell, Marcus Freeman, Dan Lanning, or some other college coaches as potential options, but there is no need to even entertain those ideas until and if you get a definitive no on your godfather offer to Vrabel. I don’t think that no ever comes – three different prominent sources now in Ohio State media have begun changing their tune on how realistic Vrabel is as a possibility – but you have to press to finality regardless.
The time is right now and it will never be more ripe. Ohio State must make its move. Forget about whatever bullshit we see from Ryan Day in the playoff is or what his margin of loss against Tennessee, Oregon, or Texas will be. We have seen enough. This farce has to end.