Ryan Day has always been a play caller at heart. He loves the science that goes into designing the perfect play, calling it at the right time and watching it get executed.
He’s good at it, too: Ohio State has some of the best offenses in the country. Since Day took over as offensive coordinator in 2018, the Buckeyes have ranked in the top 10 every year except last season.
In this era of college football, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for a head coach to justify spending time on game planning instead of running the program, recruiting, working with the transfer portal and fundraising for the NIL. That’s why Chip Kelly left his head coaching position at UCLA to become the daytime offensive coordinator at Ohio State. He wanted to focus on football.
Day knew he had to change if he wanted to reach the level of success expected of him and the Columbus fans. He had to look in the mirror, put his pride aside and stop playing. Not because he couldn’t, but because he needed to focus elsewhere.
That decision had a ripple effect throughout the program. A loaded roster and coaching changes forced Ohio State to play its first national championship game since 2014, so 16 writers and editors at Atlético The Buckeyes were predicted to win the national championship among 28 people polled during the preseason before the Buckeyes’ first game Saturday against Akron.
“I think at the end of the season you have to take a deep breath and think about what’s good and what needs to change to get to where we want to be,” Day said.
GO DEEPER
A national title or Ohio State bust? Ryan Day and the Buckeyes ‘knew what was at stake’
Ohio State’s 14-3 loss to Missouri was the low point of the day.
Since taking over the program in 2019, he has the third-highest sack percentage in college football with just eight losses. But that night last December, Heisman finalist Marvin Harrison Jr. wasn’t on the field and the Buckeyes weren’t entering the transfer portal with Kyle McCord on their first team. They looked unprepared, out of class and uncoached after a month off. A three-point, 203-yard performance capped a disappointing season. That Michigan won the national championship made it all the more outrageous.
Nothing met Day’s standard for the program last year, so he said at his post-Cotton Bowl news conference that things had to change.
“It’s hard to process it all right now, but we have to figure out what’s best for the team going forward,” Day said at the time. “It’s in a lot of areas. We’re taking a hard look at it and figuring it out, but it all remains to be seen.”
It must be admitted that Dai stuck to the idea.
Giving up the day was the best thing for Ohio, though it wasn’t an easy decision for the coach. It shows the growth and flexibility to realize he doesn’t have to control everything, a problem every first-time head coach has to deal with.
Former Ohio State defensive coordinator Luke Fickell, now at Wisconsin, gave up his play-calling duties when he became Cincinnati’s head coach. He said he has no regrets about the choice.
“When it comes to Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I don’t spend as much time as (Wisconsin coordinators) Mike Tressel and Alex Grinch and those guys honing the game plan and watching, watching, watching, which I thought I could do a better job than they could do in scoring and fixing in-game,” Fickell said. “And if we do that, I’m sure we’ve got the wrong guy.”
OC Chip Kelly was the new head coach in 2009. (Adam Cairns/USA Today Network)
I spent a winter day making sure I had the right guy or a pool of candidates filled with the right guys. I didn’t want to give this job to just anyone. In fact, Day considered giving up play-calling before the 2023 season, but he wasn’t ready to hand over the responsibilities to first-year coordinator Brian Hartline, the receivers coach who still holds the title of co-offensive coordinator.
This offseason, however, with former athletic director Gene Smith confident that assistant salaries will grow, Day began his search.
He first sat down with Bill O’Brien, the former Penn State and Houston Texans head coach who spent the past three years with Alabama and the New England Patriots. But O’Brien accepted the head coaching job at Boston College just weeks after being hired.
In steps, Kelly, who made the rare transition from Power 4 head coach to coordinator.
Kelly, who was one of Dye’s coaches, is well-prepared to take Ohio State’s offense to the next level. His combination of intelligence and innovative running game skills with the old-fashioned offense is a dream for Ohio State fans and a potential nightmare for defensive coordinators.
The recruiter assured Day that giving up the play was the right decision.
“It has to be the right fit,” Day said, “and that’s why we spent so much time and were so precise.”
The day the offense was handed over was timely, as the 2024 season has been a relentless mess for the Buckeyes.
He hired Matt Guerrieri to replace Perry Eliano as safeties coach and named James Laurinaitis the new linebackers coach in February, which meant Day would help coach special teams without a special teams coordinator on staff. With spring football underway and the coaching staff seemingly complete, running backs coach Tony Alford left for Michigan. Amid the search for Alford’s replacement, Day took over the backroom duties during spring training before being hired. Carlos Locklin from Oregon.
There was also a transport portal, another war room, and more focus on collecting NIL.
All of this isn’t even counting what’s happening on the field. Make no mistake, Day is still involved in the offensive game plan, but by freeing himself up from running the offense, he’s been able to help the program more generally. He’s enjoying more time in defensive meetings and contributing as an offensive mind to help a team that’s already one of the best in the country.
“Sometimes on defense you can see things through a different lens, and now he comes up with ideas like, ‘Hey, this is what we’re trying to attack,’ so it makes us look at any holes that there are,” cornerbacks coach Tim Walton said.
Kelly, who has known Day since he was a teenager and coached with him in the NFL, is seeing Day up close as a head coach for the first time. He said one thing that stood out this season was Day’s attention to detail.
“He explained in detail, ‘What’s the drill on special teams in period 10? Do we want to be on the right side or the left side?’” Kelly said. “His attention to detail is incredible. I’ve met a lot of coaches who are very detailed in everything they do. It’s usually like, ‘OK, I’m the coach, this is your time to do whatever you want,’ and they’re from the top. He holds his staff accountable, but it’s the details of how we schedule practice and how we schedule meetings, the guidelines.”
An often-overlooked part of running a program is the message the coach sends each day. That sets the tone for the experience and culture he wants to build, and Day has had more time to focus on that this season as well.
“I can brainstorm how I want to represent the team and areas I want to challenge the staff with in staff meetings,” Day said. “All of that has allowed me to do that and I think it’s helped the team and the culture.”
There is no extra free time for the day despite waiving the game call. Not only is he the head coach of Ohio State; he is the CEO of a well-known football brand that is tasked with operating like a Fortune 500 company.
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He has rebuilt a program that faced serious questions after the loss at Missouri and now hopes to win a national championship with his predecessor Urban Meyer’s staff. saying “Perhaps the best college football roster of the last decade.”
Despite all the criticism he received that day after the Cotton Bowl, much of it deserved, he had an impeccable season. Now comes the hardest part: living up to expectations.
Nobody wins a season-winning award. It just adds pressure, which is nothing new for Day after three straight losses to rival Michigan. Every time he’s asked about rushing, he responds with the same line: “If you want to know about rushing, try missing the Ohio State game.”
They’ve missed the playoffs the past two or three years and haven’t beaten Michigan since 2019. Something needs to change this season and Day deserves credit for getting it started.
