I am a poker player… not an especially good one, but someone who enjoys the ritual of sitting down at an upholstered table with seven to nine people I’ve never met before in an overly air-conditioned poker room for the mental and emotional torture of playing cards for three to 10 hours straight.
There are a lot of things in my poker game that I still struggle with: my bet sizing tends to be too big (which can chase away opponents when I’ve got a good hand and cripple me when I don’t), I’m often unsure
of how to play pocket pairs post-flop if I don’t connect, and I am not nearly smart enough to understand GTO. However, if there is one thing that I can confidently say I am good at, it is playing a short stack. It’s true in a cash game, but especially so in a tournament; when I get low in chips — under 20 big blinds — all of the confusion that the game’s myriad variables create in my head suddenly quiets, and I instinctively know what to do.
There is a freedom in playing a short stack, because you really only have one decision to make on each hand: fold or go all-in. While it’s not a perfect analogy, that is essentially how I feel the Buckeyes should approach tonight’s game in Austin. While those sub-20 BB decisions in a poker tournament clearly have consequences (if you go all-in and lose, you’re out of the tournament), the consequences of playing safe and losing are substantially smaller than the potential benefits of playing aggressively and winning. A short stack — like the Buckeyes — absolutely has something to lose, but playing cautiously often means wasting your best opportunities to find success.
These decisions for poker players are relatively easy because you look at your cards and your position, and you either decide to live and fight another day or you apply maximum pressure for the biggest possible payoff. The latter is what Ryan Day should be doing from start to finish against Texas; after all, what is there to be gained by playing scared?
Obviously, like the poker tournament, if Ohio State loses this game, there will be negative ramifications, but they will still control their own destiny to make the Big Ten Championship Game and College Football Playoff — two of their self-professed goals. Sure, they will have a bit less margin for error in their CFP chase, but everything that matters would still be in front of them.
Besides, the Buckeyes have beaten Texas in each of the last two seasons, including the most consequential of the three matchups — the 2025 Cotton Bowl CFP Semifinal. So when it comes to the spectrum of relative pressure in this game, it is almost all on the side of the Burnt Orange. Day has proven he can get his team to the top; Steve Sarkisian has not. Ohio State has never left, so they don’t have to constantly prove they are “back”; Texas still does. The Buckeyes hold a two-game winning streak in the series; the Longhorns have to prove they can beat OSU.
To me, that disproportionate lack of pressure on the Buckeyes — who find themselves as underdogs, despite being the top-ranked team in the country — should be freeing. I have complained over the years that the biggest thing holding Ohio State back at times has been the head coach’s fear and timidity when it comes to game planning. The Buckeyes have historically been at their worst under Day when he is overly conservative and seemingly afraid to take risks and make mistakes.
Fortunately, more or less since the 2024 loss to Michigan (which was when I finally had had enough), we have seen my favorite version of Ryan Day — Dark Ryan Day. Imposter Syndrome Ryan Day has mostly been MIA over the past 22 months, so why not embrace that even further under college football’s biggest spotlight?
We’ve all seen how excited Day gets on big plays (remember him running down the field as Sark buried his head in his hands on Scoop and Sawyer?); we know he loves a home run, a knockout shot. So throw caution to the wind, Ryan; coach with a bit of reckless abandon for once in your life. The game would be so much more fun for you and the fans if you put the team in Death Star Mode. The Buckeyes don’t need to sit around waiting for a premium spot to go all-in. You are Ohio State. With a roster like that, every spot is premium.
Pull out the stops, put on the pressure, and play with freedom. Let Sark and Will Muschamp worry about taking risks. Make Arch Manning be the one hearing footsteps. Force the Texas secondary to question how they are going to cover all of the playmakers.
Sure, you still want the Buckeyes to play a schematically and fundamentally sound game, but the OSU coaches should let the athletes play. They’ve got all of the weapons you could ever possibly hope for; why not do everything you can to take advantage of that fact?
One poker truism that I still struggle with is that the most aggressive player is usually the most successful player. It takes a certain amount of fearlessness to play that way, but when you’ve got the cards and nothing to lose, aggression is the most effective and entertaining way to go. Ryan Day is looking down at a roster full of pocket Aces, and there’s no excuse not to go all-in tonight against Texas.
