Ohio State enters the 2024 college football season as one of the favorites to win the College Football Playoff, with a No. 2 ranking in both the preseason US LBM Coaches Poll and AP Top 25.
Whether the Buckeyes can win the national championship may not even be the most pressing question surrounding the program in 2024. It’s what not securing the title might mean for their coach.
By most conventional measurements, Ryan Day has succeeded in his five-plus seasons at Ohio State, with a 56-8 record, two Big Ten championships and three playoff appearances. He has fallen short, however, in other facets of the job that carry just as much emotional importance to Buckeyes fans than a sterling overall win-loss record could.
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Because of that, Day heads into the 2024 season in a precarious position, as a winning coach at a prestigious program who nonetheless faces mounting pressure to win — or a growing portion of the Ohio State faithful will call for his firing.
While mired in that situation, Day has at least one prominent defender — Nick Saban.
In an appearance Friday on “The Pat McAfee Show,” which was airing from Dublin (Ireland, not Ohio), the legendary and recently retired coach responded forcefully to a question about Day and the massive expectations facing him and the Buckeyes this season.
“I’ve lived this life for 17 years. For 15 years, we were expected to win every game,” the former Alabama coach said. “It’s hard for me to take the position to put that kind of pressure and expectations on any coach, Ryan Day included, because you never know what’s going to happen. You don’t know if the quarterback’s going to get hurt. You don’t know if you’re going to lose the corners on defense and you can’t cover anybody. You have to be able to improvise and adjust and do the best you can. I personally think Ryan Day’s a really good coach. I think he’ll do a really good job with this roster.”
Those lofty goals for Ohio State stem in large part from what might be the country’s best, most talented and deepest roster. The Buckeyes have four players on the Associated Press preseason All-America team, the most of any program in the country. Seven of the 22 offensive and defensive positions on the USA TODAY Network preseason all-Big Ten team were occupied by Ohio State players.
With so many stellar pieces come reasonable hopes for a national championship, but Saban believes the Buckeyes’ roster shouldn’t be held against Day should his team fail to win a title.
“If he has the best roster, who got the roster there? Who’s responsible to get them there? He got them there,” Saban said. “That counts for something. … The fans should appreciate the fact they have one of the best teams in the country and they do their part to be positive and cheer the guy on in a positive way and create a lot of positive energy.”
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The most glaring marks on Day’s otherwise strong resume have been failures in the biggest, most consequential games, the ones that separate a really good coach from a championship one.
Under Day, Ohio State has gone 2-5 against opponents that were ranked in the top five of the US LBM Coaches Poll at the time of the matchup. Day is also 1-3 against archrival Michigan after his two full-time predecessors, Urban Meyer and Jim Tressel, combined to go 17-1 against the Wolverines. With a 30-24 loss last season in Ann Arbor, Day became the first Buckeyes coach since John Cooper in 1995-97 to fall to Michigan three consecutive times.
“I’m sure his team, regardless of what we all feel, has issues and problems that are going to have to get resolved,” Saban said. “If they get resolved in a positive way because of the players and all the coaches and Ryan Day’s leadership, then maybe they get to where they want to go. But I’m a process-oriented guy. I keep saying that. You keep thinking about what you have to do to get the result, not be a fan and say if you don’t get the result, we’re going to fire you.”
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Publish date : 2024-08-23 07:55:00
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