On Monday, the Big Ten announced that this year’s conference championship game will be its last. After 16 seasons, the event will be no more as the College Football Playoff expands to 24 teams in 2027, eliminating the need for silly little things like conference title games. With Ohio State at 6-3 overall and 4-2 in Big Ten play this year, the Buckeyes will need to win out and get considerable help to make one final appearance at Lucas Oil Stadium.
That means Ryan Day will likely finish his eight
seasons as Ohio State’s head coach in the Big Ten Championship Game era with just two conference titles, all the way back in 2019 and 2020. Despite overseeing one of the most talented programs in college football over the past decade, Day’s Buckeyes could go the event’s final six years without winning it once, even though they wasted another opportunity just last season.
I know what some of you are thinking: Who cares about conference championships when Day won a national title two seasons ago? And I get it. I’d trade any number of Big Ten trophies for that glorious postseason run. But it doesn’t erase the other missed opportunities. The impending end of the conference championship game, coupled with this season’s disappointments, has forced me to confront a conclusion that is getting increasingly difficult to ignore.
Despite all of his victories, CFP appearances, and, yes, even the national championship, Ryan Day has underachieved as Ohio State’s head coach.
Now, before you head to the comments to call me names that I probably deserve, as I’ve said before, I’m not calling for Day to be fired (although I did that once in 2024, and he responded by winning four straight playoff games and a national title). I like Day; I respect him, and I believe he’s a genuinely good human being who cares about his players beyond what they can do for him on Saturdays. I was never happier to be wrong than I was in January 2025.
But the question isn’t whether Day has been successful; of course he has. It’s whether his teams have consistently accomplished what they reasonably should have, given their extraordinary advantages. And, good Woody above, has Day had advantages; some might even say that he was born on third base.
Ohio State has produced 69 NFL Draft picks during the Day era, including 20 first-rounders. Fourteen Buckeyes were selected in 2025 and another 11 in 2026, tying the seven-round era record for selections over two consecutive drafts. And they’re not just impressive names on draft cards.
Garrett Wilson, C.J. Stroud, and Chase Young have won NFL Rookie of the Year honors, while Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Chris Olave, J.K. Dobbins, and more have become major professional talents. And with players like Emeka Egbuka, Caleb Downs, Sonny Styles, and Arvell Reese still early in their professional careers, there are undoubtedly more NFL stars on the way.
There is little doubt that Ohio State has solidified its claim to being NFLU under Day, and that’s a tremendous credit to him and his staff. But the better you are at collecting and developing exceptional talent, the higher the standard for what you accomplish with it has to be.
I’ve long maintained, to the chagrin of many LGHL readers and podcast listeners, that failing to win a national championship during the four combined seasons with Justin Fields and Stroud at quarterback was one of the most significant missed opportunities in Ohio State football history. The two best QBs in program history and two future NFL first-rounders surrounded by ridiculous offensive talent, and yet no title.
Of course, there were “reasons”: defensive failings, formidable opponents, horrible officiating, agonizing breaks. I’m not saying the Buckeyes should have won four titles (although that would have been fun), but you just can’t convince me that they shouldn’t have won at least one.
And now another season is slipping away with Jeremiah Smith, the second-best player I’ve ever seen wear scarlet and gray, behind only Orlando Pace. Yes, Smith won a championship as a freshman, and yes, Julian Sayin’s injury has forced Ohio State to rely on true freshman Luke Fahey, but the frustrating pattern of failing to maximize generational talent didn’t begin when Sayin got hurt.
I keep coming back to the possibility that Ryan Day’s biggest problem is that he’s spent years trying to coach himself out of being Ryan Day, and every painful loss is making it harder for him to be the man that Ohio State initially hired.
The aggressive, creative offensive mind who made this offense so terrifying early in his tenure seems to have been beaten down by the losses to Michigan, the playoff disappointments, and the relentless criticism that his teams were soft.
Rather than attack relentlessly, Day appeared determined to play tough-guy football, control possession, minimize risk, and avoid injuries over an increasingly long season. I understand the logic, but somewhere along the way, he overcorrected, and the edge that once defined his teams began to disappear.
And while offensive tempo doesn’t tell the whole story, the numbers certainly illustrate just how dramatically Day’s approach has changed. Ohio State averaged 76.4 offensive plays per game in 2019, compared with 63.9 in 2023, 61.8 in 2024, and 64 in 2025, when they averaged 31.1 seconds per play — the second slowest in FBS.
Ohio State is back up to roughly 70 plays per game through nine contests this season, but pace isn’t the same as aggression. My complaint isn’t that Ohio State needs to snap the ball every 15 seconds; it’s that too often the Buckeyes seem more concerned with avoiding a bad outcome than creating a great one, which is especially maddening because we’ve seen just how effective the alternative can be.
After the soul-crushing Michigan loss in 2024, Ohio State came out swinging in the playoff. The Buckeyes demolished Tennessee, 42-17, then raced to a 34-0 lead against previously unbeaten Oregon in the Rose Bowl. They attacked mismatches, trusted their playmakers, and poured it on at every opportunity. They looked like the team we’d been begging Day to let them become… and then they won the national championship.
That run should have been the blueprint for the future of Day’s Ohio State program, not a four-game detour from the conservative philosophy that has increasingly defined it. I don’t know if Day is capable of recovering that version of himself. The pressure, criticism, and disappointments of coaching Ohio State would change anybody, and a midseason overhaul with a true freshman quarterback would be a logistical nightmare. But I desperately want him to try, if not in the remaining games this year, then next fall. I want this not merely because fearless football is more entertaining to watch, but because I believe that mentality is necessary to consistently beat elite opponents in modern college football.
Some fans, including colleagues of mine here at Land-Grant Holy Land, believe Ohio State should part ways with Day. I share their frustration, but not their conclusion. I’ve said for years that I’d love for Ryan Day to be Ohio State’s coach for decades to come. I believe he has the character, compassion, and coaching ability to become one of the defining figures in the university’s history.
That future, though, can’t survive on goodwill, NFL Draft picks, and memories of one glorious postseason alone. Nobody actually expects Ohio State to win every national championship, but it’s reasonable to expect these spectacularly talented teams to meet, and occasionally exceed, their potential instead of routinely leaving us wondering what might have been.
I don’t want Ryan Day fired; I want him to more regularly deliver on the promise of his program. I want him to more regularly achieve the goals that he sets for his team. I want him to rediscover the creativity and ruthlessness that first made him so dangerous. I want him to, once again, prove that I have no idea what the hell I’m talking about by doing the very thing that I am increasingly afraid he is no longer capable of.
Day has accomplished more at Ohio State than almost any coach could dream of achieving, and yet, I believe he should have accomplished more. With three games left, including The Game, even this teetering season offers another chance for him to prove me wrong.
I don’t want to spend the next decade wondering what Ryan Day could have accomplished at Ohio State. I want to spend it watching him actually do it.
