Despite talking a good game and making seemingly Sabanesque moves, Ohio State’s head coach is reverting to his underwhelming mean.
I feel a bit like Charlie Brown and Ryan Day is Lucy. There is no doubt that Days’ tenure in Columbus has been marked by an impressive collection of talent being annually assembled at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. That is consistently proven in the recruiting rankings and NFL Draft selections.
However, while the measurables are obvious to anybody paying attention, the intangibles have just never felt right. Objective fans realized when Day was named head coach that there would be a bit of a learning curve as he would have to figure out how to actually be a head coach on the job, since he came into the position having never done it before.
But we are now well into his sixth season in charge in Columbus and every year has been marked with some level of underachievement and disappointment. Admittedly, Ohio State fans — reasonably or not — expect their team to win the national championship every year, and anything short of that is going to be disappointing to a certain degree.
But it is hard to accept that in four years of Justin Fields and C.J. Stroud — inarguably the two best quarterbacks in program history — Ohio State won only one game against Michigan, one Big Ten title, and two bowl games – only one being in the College Football Playoff.
The losses — in rivalries, bowl games, and the playoffs — were devastating, humbling the fanbase and increasingly causing the most frustrated amongst us to check out completely on Ryan Day, while still hoping for the best from the team.
And yet, every offseason, Day somehow says enough of the right things to convince many fans — often myself included — that he knows exactly how to address the obvious issues, and our confidence is born anew. This year, not only did the head coach say many of the right things, but he seemingly did many of them as well. While the team only brought in seven guys via the transfer portal — two of whom are depth pieces — Day finally seemed to prioritize constructing the best possible roster over potentially hurting players’ feelings; a bit simplistic, but something many saw as (and hoped was) the first step in the Sabanification of Ohio State’s head coach.
Day also fired the two most underwhelming — and underqualified — coaches on his staff, he made exciting hires to replace them and others, he finally gave up play-calling responsibilities, and he flexed the full muscle of Ohio State’s NIL capability to retain the vast majority of the impact players from 2023. It seemed like Day had finally learned the hard-fought lessons of his first five seasons.
This filled me with a confidence unimaginable following the embarrassing bowl loss to the Missouri Tigers. So, as the season approached, I put on my signature yellow short-sleeved, collared t-shirt with a black zig-zag pattern and began running toward the football with near-reckless abandon, full of childlike joy and optimism that this might finally be the year that I get to kick the football.
Following two blowout wins against underwhelming opposition, I started ramping up speed with visions of giving that ball which had long alluded my foot, the biggest, most satisfying kick possible.
However, then I watched the first half of the Marshall game and there was suddenly a little bit of a hitch in my giddy-up. Nonetheless, I barreled forward, because certainly Ryan Day would regress to the same old habits that had pulled the football out from under me so many times before, would he? Would he?
Then there were the solid, but not especially satisfying, wins over Michigan State and Iowa, where I started to regain my speed and conviction as I barreled toward what I was confident would be a swift and decisive striking of the ball in Eugene, Oregon. And yet, as I looked up mid-stride, I saw the old Ryan Day holding the football, looking at me ominously.
While the coach’s look unnerved me, it was too late to abort now, I was all-in on my efforts to finally see that ball go sailing through the uprights. So, as I rapidly approached the ball, my eye trained on the target, I don’t realize until it is too late that, just as I planted my left leg and swung my right backward to generate that last little bit of momentum, Lucy Day had pulled the ball off of the ground, leaving me to to go flying through the air, landing on my ass like the predictably gullible fool that I so obviously am.
Against Oregon and Nebraska, Day went back to where he is most comfortable, inside his turtle shell during the moments when his team needed aggression and inventiveness most. Instead, we saw a reversion to the mean as Day got unnecessarily conservative, abandoned schematic creativity, refused to sit veteran players when it was obvious that they weren’t helping the team, overhyped players that just weren’t up to the tasks that they have been asked to do, and got pouty in press conferences when media members dared to ask questions about his team’s subpar performance.
Despite being flat on my back again, I remain — somewhat flinchingly — optimistic. I know what type of talent Day and company have put together on the roster; I know that the coaches are capable of calling better games; I know that this team has the potential to be the best in the country, it’s just a matter of them discarding all of the insecurities, preconceived ideas, and unwillingness to admit fault.
While I am not especially confident that this will happen Saturday against Penn State or any time this season, I know that it can happen. So I am tenuously holding on to that fading possibility and hoping against hope that Lucy sees the error of her ways, understands everything that is at stake, and allows the Buckeyes, I mean Charlie Brown, to finally kick the ball.