COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State coach Ryan Day leans back into the leather couch in his office, days away from the season-opening showdown against top-ranked Texas.
Behind him, the Rose and Cotton Bowl trophies from last year’s playoff run gleam on a shelf. Across the room, a black-and-white photograph captures Jeremiah Smith’s game-clinching grab against Notre Dame — the play that sealed the Buckeyes’ first national championship in a decade.
That thrilling victory vaulted Day into exclusive company: only two other active college football head coaches — Clemson’s Dabo Swinney and Georgia’s Kirby Smart — have won national titles.
“We’ve won a lot of games, but when you haven’t won the whole thing, you don’t necessarily get the benefit of the doubt with everybody,” says Day, who took over for Urban Meyer in 2019 after just two seasons on his staff. “You’ll never get the benefit of the doubt with everybody, I guess. But winning one certainly gives a lot of credibility to what we’re doing.”
Nine months earlier, Day faced the fiercest scrutiny of his career — the result of a fourth straight loss to Michigan. As the final seconds ticked away in the 13-10 defeat at the Horseshoe, Ohio State students chanted “F— Ryan Day.”
The jeers escalated into death threats. Armed guards had to be stationed at the Day home, as they had been after past Michigan losses. Day’s wife, Nina, even received threatening text messages and calls on her phone.
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“Fans were yelling at his wife in stores, his kids were getting messed with at school,” said 2024 Buckeyes captain Jack Sawyer, who’s now a defensive end for the Pittsburgh Steelers. “The things that he and his family had to go through were just absurd — it’s just insanity.”
But Day and his family remained resolute. So did the Buckeyes, who came together during a pivotal three-hour meeting a couple of days later with just Day and the players.
It began with screaming and tears. It ended with everyone clasping hands in prayer.
“It got real in there,” said then-quarterback Will Howard, also with the Steelers. “But it made us closer — and turned us into a different animal when the playoffs came.”
The Buckeyes bounced back with a fury. They destroyed Tennessee 42-17 at home in the College Football Playoff first round, then annihilated undefeated Oregon at the Rose Bowl 41-21, avenging their only other loss during the regular season.
Sawyer’s fourth-quarter strip-sack and score clinched the Cotton Bowl win over Texas, setting up Smith’s heroics against the Fighting Irish in Atlanta.
As confetti fell upon the championship presentation stage, Day hoisted the trophy and roared, letting the emotion pour out of him.
“Take all the components of what you’d want in a head coach — and Coach Day has all of that,” said Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork. “Maybe it took the national championship for people to really see it. But deep down, I think now people realize we’ve got the right guy.”
BEFORE LAST YEAR’S Michigan game, Day said that aside from his father’s suicide when he was 8 years old, losing to the Wolverines was “for my family, the worst thing that’s happened.”
When the New Hampshire native arrived in Ohio in 2017, he was an outsider to the rivalry. Now, Day feels the fervor that consumes the fan base.
“This is a big chunk of our life — we’ve put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this place,” said Day, noting his kids have grown up in Ohio. “There’s a lot of weight with this job and a lot of people counting on you to do this job because of what the Block O means. You’ve got to have a thick neck and be able to handle it.”
That was put to the test last November when Michigan stunned the Buckeyes as nearly three-touchdown underdogs — one of the rivalry’s biggest upsets. Afterward, the Wolverines planted their flag on the Block O at midfield and a brawl erupted between the two teams. Police ended it with pepper spray.
“When you lose, and when you lose certainly that game, it hurts — it hurts nobody more than me and my family, trust me,” Day said. “It’s our life. And we understand what comes with it — the anger, the frustration for everybody. It’s real because the passion is so strong.”
In the aftermath, Day was so sickened he could barely eat. Bjork called to reassure Day that he and the administration had his back. Sawyer, Day’s first verbal commitment in 2019 and a Columbus product, also called to say he was sorry for what Day was going through.
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“He cut me off: ‘I’m a grown man, I can handle this stuff — this is what comes with the job,'” Sawyer recalled Day telling him. “He’s one of the most resilient, toughest people I’ve ever met in my life — and they’ve got one of the toughest families that I’ve ever been around.”
Day said he gave himself one day to wallow. But he couldn’t let his family or players see him feeling sorry for himself. He told his three kids — R.J., a star quarterback at St. Francis DeSales, and daughters Grace and Nia — that school in the coming days wouldn’t be easy: “‘You’re going to have to be tough — and you’re going to find out who your true friends are,'” he said.
As the Buckeyes reconvened at the Woody Hayes facility to prepare for Tennessee as the No. 8 seed, the players called a closed-door meeting. They invited Day — no assistants.
Sawyer spoke first; Howard, wide receiver Emeka Egbuka, running back TreVeyon Henderson and linebacker Cody Simon followed.
Players critiqued the playcalling, the schemes and individual players and coaches. They called out the entire offensive line, which, down starters Josh Simmons and Seth McLaughlin, had gotten dominated by the Wolverines.
“Guys are fighting, guys are in tears, Coach Day’s getting challenged, he’s challenging guys. You could’ve cut the intensity with a knife,” Sawyer said. “But it was the most special meeting I’ve ever been a part of.”
The first half hour was heated, but eventually, everyone — Day included — took accountability for the Michigan loss. They concluded with prayer and a collective objective — go win it all.
“It was a great lesson,” Day said. “When things aren’t right, you’ve got to have honest conversations — even if it’s uncomfortable.”
WHEN THE BUCKEYES took the field to face Tennessee, they saw swaths of orange coating the Horseshoe. Still disgusted with the Michigan defeat, many Ohio State fans sold their tickets and thousands of Tennessee faithful gobbled them up.
“Our backs were against the wall,” Day said. “When you came out of the tunnel and saw the crowd, you could feel it.”
Day and Howard briefly considered using a silent snap count to combat the visiting crowd noise before opting against it.
The Buckeyes were unfazed — and quickly dispelled any predictions of a Michigan hangover. Ohio State scored touchdowns on its first three drives. By the third quarter, the orange swaths had thinned into empty seats.
“We knew this was our last chance to make things right for us, for Coach Day,” Howard said. “And we all rallied around him.”
Before Oregon, Day showed the team a clip of Lakers legend Kobe Bryant looking angry in a news conference after going up 2-0 in the 2009 NBA Finals.
“What’s there to be happy about?” Bryant famously said. “Job’s not finished.”
The Buckeyes played that way in Pasadena.
The Ducks couldn’t cover Smith and almost every pass Howard threw was on point. Ohio State’s revamped offensive line — overpowered by Michigan and maligned in the team meeting — paved the way for the running game.
The Buckeyes led 34-0 in the second quarter.
“Things were moving in slow motion for us,” Day said. “The buy-in was right, the mojo was right, the tempo was right — we were hitting on all cylinders.”
Even in that moment, Day wasn’t satisfied. On the field after the win, Bjork tried to hand Day a long-stemmed rose to commemorate the memorable victory. Day turned it down.
“He said, ‘I’m not taking that,'” Bjork recalled. “‘We still got two games left.'”
Back in Columbus, the Buckeyes were going over the game plan for Texas when Day paused the conversation.
“I’ve never had so much fun coaching a group of guys — and I’ve never loved a group of guys as much as you guys,'” Sawyer recalled Day telling them.
On Jan. 20 — the anniversary of his father’s death — Day joined Paul Brown, Woody Hayes, Jim Tressel and Meyer as the Ohio State coaches to win national championships. When he reflects on that title now, Day thinks first of his players — and the generations of Buckeyes fans who got to experience the run together.
“I can’t tell you how many people have come up to me and said, ‘I watched that last game with my grandfather before he passed away,’ or ‘My son and I went through an ice storm to get to Dallas to watch Jack run the ball back,’ or ‘We were out at the Rose Bowl and it’s one of the greatest first halves I’ve ever seen,’ or ‘We were in the stadium for the first half against Tennessee and it was one of the best memories I’ve ever had,'” Day said, before reeling off other similar stories. “That’s what this is all about. … That’s the responsibility here. And it’s bigger than any one of us.”
LEANING FORWARD FROM his office couch, Day notes that his biggest fear isn’t losing games — it’s losing the opportunity to impact players.
“That’s the No. 1 goal and focus,” he said. “And you have to win in order to continue doing that. It’s not about the championships, as much as so many people want to focus on that — that’s just the prerequisite.”
This offseason, he had his players read “Chop Wood, Carry Water,” which teaches that big successes stem from a commitment to completing a series of simple, mundane tasks.
The Buckeyes face a big task Saturday. The Longhorns are hungry for revenge after Ohio State ended their last postseason run.
Day knows better than anyone the Buckeyes can’t bask in their national title.
“We lose the first [game],” he said, “and we’re going to be hearing about it real fast. … That’s the way it goes here — more here than anywhere else.”
Day welcomes it. He also welcomes the pressure that comes with the Michigan game. Through four straight losses, he sees an “unbelievable opportunity” ahead.
“That’s it, man,” he said with a big smile. “Gotta go win that game — and I can’t wait to play it.”
