For some, Coach Ryan Day can’t be forgiven for a regular-season loss to the middling Wolverines: “He needs to destroy Michigan one time.”
Let me tell you about my sister-in-law the proud Ohio State Buckeye. She grew up less than an hour away from campus. She graduated in 1998. Her three siblings attended Ohio State. Her parents too. And when it comes to Ohio State football, she is both fervent in support and gentle in judgment — you’re getting the benefit of the doubt if you coach or play for her team.
This is not the “lunatic fringe” of which Kirk Herbstreit sometimes speaks. But this is what she said on the eve of Ohio State’s College Football Playoff quarterfinal against Tennessee: “I couldn’t care less. The season’s over.”
Ryan Day ended it. Until he revived it, with such force that Ohio State (13-2) is heavily favored to beat Notre Dame (14-1) in Monday’s CFP national championship game in Atlanta. Day is one win from joining Woody Hayes, Jim Tressel and Urban Meyer as Ohio State coaches with national titles to their names. He’d have the same number as Tressel and Meyer, and two fewer than Hayes. He’s on the verge of authoring, said longtime Buckeyes chronicler Doug Lesmerises, “the greatest month in Ohio State football history.”
Which means perhaps the most whiplashed fan base in college football history. The ones who supported Day through three straight losses to excellent Michigan teams, who rightfully pointed to his overall success and representation of the program, can’t be blamed for finally throwing up their hands after the fourth straight. There’s still no satisfactory explanation for a 13-10 home loss to the middling 2024 Wolverines on Nov. 30, arguably the most shocking outcome that rivalry has seen.
The ones who were out on Day before that, who seemed to have even the most patient of Buckeyes seeing things their way six weeks ago, can’t be blamed for believing in him like never before as of today. It’s a dizzying, fascinating study in the misery of being right and the joy of being wrong. And vice versa. And back and forth. Until Day either wins them over for good or sets a new standard for success while embattled.
“What makes me mad is all this stuff (from some media) out there acting like that’s not fair,” said Lesmerises, who spent 18 seasons writing about Ohio State and now hosts the “Kings of the North” college football podcast. “It’s a results-based business, so of course fans react to results. Of course they do. It was completely reasonable to say, ‘I don’t know if this is the right guy anymore’ (after the Michigan loss) and completely reasonable to think, ‘This guy is awesome,’ now.”
Ryan Day is 69-10 as the head coach at Ohio State … but has lost four straight games to Michigan. (Aaron J. Thornton / Getty Images)
Not that everyone is thinking that. Witness the text thread of 15 Ohio State friends who graduated about 10 years ago.
Two of them, Lucas Poole and David Kaiser, have been known as the vocal, dutiful Day supporters. They pointed out that Day predecessor Urban Meyer was 7-0 against mostly weak Michigan teams. They cited Day’s recruiting, offensive scheming, overall record (now 69-10) and human characteristics — likable, not controversial, a man whose father died by suicide and who has devoted time and resources to mental health advocacy.
Not good in big games? What about the 2020 CFP win over Clemson? What about the tremendous performance in a heartbreaking semifinal loss to Georgia two years ago?
Then came Nov. 30 and Michigan. Yes, Ohio State does have a larger “lunatic fringe” than other fan bases, because it has more fans than anyone else. That’s what a 2022 study conducted by strategy consultant TJ Altimore, using New York Times data, found — Ohio State tops in college football with 11.26 million fans, Notre Dame second with 8.21 million. Any measure, such as TV ratings, will at least put Ohio State near the top.
And just as a high school of 2,000 students will produce several Division I athletes while a school of 100 will produce one every once in a while, Ohio State supplies warriors to countless keyboards in times of strife. The message boards that Poole and Kaiser lurk on — but as a rule don’t post on — did their thing. Thread titles from that day and the days following included:
“Done with Ohio State if Day is still the coach!”
“Ashamed to be a Buckeye.”
“The ’90s have returned.” (A reference to then-OSU coach John Cooper and his 2-10-1 record against Michigan)
“It has to be Vrabel, it’s always been Vrabel.” (A reference to preferred Day replacement Mike Vrabel, who has since been hired as head coach of the New England Patriots)
“Chip and Dale got outcoached.” (A reference to Ohio State offensive coordinator Chip Kelly and, apparently, the equating of Kelly and Day with popular Disney chipmunks)
“Can Ryan Day be sued?”
That last one was featured on “X” account Message Board Geniuses and explored the question of legal recourse for fans who spend so much in support of a coach who makes so much and just ruined their year. It was the rare public suggestion of a lawsuit that did not attract a lawyer. Meanwhile, Kaiser was asking himself: “Can this guy be the guy? Is this just a mental block he’ll never get over?”
Poole admitted to his anti-Day friends, finally and agonizingly, that, “I probably felt similar” to how they felt. You want to talk about a levelheaded fan? Poole is a youth minister by trade, serving in Pittsburgh as a director for a national ministry organization.
He was now with most fans and with a growing list of media questioning Day’s fitness for the job as well — “It was like, ‘OK, maybe that’s it for this guy,’” Lesmerises said. The folks defending Day were on the fringe.
“His approval rating with the fan base at that point was probably 5 percent,” Kaiser said, and just as every team has a certain percentage of people who go off on everything, every team has folks who blindly support all wearing that team’s colors.
That’s where this would have ended before the 12-team era. Ohio State would have played in a bowl game with a bunch of opt-outs, perhaps losing to a lesser team as a result — as it did after the 2023 season to Missouri — and Day would have entered an uncomfortable offseason. Fired? Probably not. Gone on his own accord? Ohio State media have speculated on that possibility for years, given the backlash these Michigan losses have inspired.
Ohio State fans could have ended up like Texas Tech fans with Mike Leach or Nebraska fans with Frank Solich or Cal fans with Jeff Tedford — not realizing what they had until it was gone. They still could. As Lesmerises pointed out, Vrabel needs an offensive coordinator, Day is from New Hampshire, and Vrabel tried to hire Day as his OC with the Tennessee Titans in 2018.
But the 12-team era allowed Nov. 30, 2024, in Columbus to be a potential turning point for Day, the thing that finally makes him stick. Just as Oct. 30, 2021, in East Lansing, Mich., was for another coach. I talked to a lot of Michigan fans outside of Spartan Stadium that afternoon, after Michigan lost 37-33 to Michigan State. I might have needed to get into the thousands to find one who still wanted Jim Harbaugh to coach their team.
Harbaugh dropped to 3-4 against the Spartans that day. He was 0-5 against Ohio State, missing a blowout in 2020 and a 0-6 mark because of too many COVID-19 positives. He had just taken a massive pay cut. He hadn’t won the Big Ten. He hadn’t developed a great quarterback. It was his seventh season.
We all know how it went from there. Largely at Day’s expense. Perhaps with a bit too much help from a guy named Connor Stalions. Which turned out to be a late-arriving excuse for Day.
But Harbaugh and Stalions weren’t in Columbus on Nov. 30. So Tennessee fans gobbled up tens of thousands of seats in Ohio State for a first-round game. Day downplayed it — “We have great fans,” he told ESPN’s “GameDay” — and the ones who showed up sarcastically chanted “SEC! SEC! SEC!” late in a 42-17 rout.
They flocked in big numbers to watch the Buckeyes destroy No. 1, unbeaten Oregon 41-21 in the Rose Bowl quarterfinal. Same for a 28-14 win over Texas in the Cotton Bowl semifinal. Day hadn’t fixed the Michigan problem. But he killed the “can’t win big games” thing for good. Ohio State fans were back on his side. How could they not be? The 12-team Playoff offered Ohio State more huge games than most teams get in a season.
Lesmerises polled his listeners and the majority reported going from completely out to all the way back in during the run. My sister-in-law had a two-word assessment: “All forgiven.”
Poole took to that text thread when the Texas victory was in hand and told his friends: “I’m so happy for Ryan Day.”
The first response?
“F— you.”
“I’m so happy this guy coached a crap game and got bailed out,” Josh Jamieson continued in the thread, mocking Poole. “Hell nah.”
Count Jamieson, a 2015 Ohio State graduate, data analyst for Cardinal Health in Columbus and fan who isn’t hiding behind BuckEyeZ4Ever or some other screen name, as a Ryan Day hater who has not stopped being a Ryan Day hater.
“I’m watching in that game more or less the same coaching job as he had against Michigan,” Jamieson said. “Time after time, when Day feels pressure, his team plays like a team that’s also under pressure. It seems like he needs this ritual-like humiliation every year to get his head out of his ass. And then for some reason, it came back in the Texas game.”
Jamieson believes the Ohio State brand and well-funded collective make recruiting easy for the Buckeyes. He likes the 69-10 record, but he knows it’s 68-6 against opponents not named Michigan. He’s not alone. He’s not necessarily wrong, either, in expecting the most from a program as positioned for success as any.
“I honestly think if Day loses in the national championship game, a lot of people are going to want him fired again,” Poole said. “As crazy as that is to say.”
Jamieson has enjoyed the run to date. He admits it has given him “complicated feelings” about Day.
But yes, he’s waiting on this next game. And this next Michigan game. The 12-team Playoff has been great, but you can’t tell me the regular season doesn’t matter anymore. Some Ohio State fans are talking about it less than a week before the national championship game.
“This guy kind of clams up in a lot of big moments,” Jamieson said of Day. “That’s how Michigan was able to beat us. Moving forward, every Michigan player will come in with a certain amount of swagger that Tressel and Meyer beat out of them for 20 years.”
So, Ryan Day, if you want everyone, just roll in the national championship game, then break the rivalry streak next November. Emphatically.
“He needs to destroy Michigan one time,” Jamieson said. “A real beatdown.”
(Illustration: Will Tullos / The Athletic; Photos: Melinda Meijer, Zach Bolinger, Joe Robbins, Ian Johnson / Getty Images)
