It will be 51 days between Ryan Day’s worst moment as Ohio State’s football coach, a harrowing 13-10 loss to Michigan on Nov. 30, and perhaps his greatest moment: winning the national title if the Buckeyes can beat Notre Dame on Monday.
It’s the comprehensive story of the College Football Playoff. This coach and his team rise from the canvas, booed and surrounded by doubt, to win four playoff games and the big trophy at the end.
Doing so will be a testament to team, confidence, character and resilience. Oh, and a lot of great players.
Every year someone wins it all. No one has won it that way in any year. With many calls for head coaches to be fired at the start of the playoffs.
However, until the crimson and gray scraps fall – no guarantee against a talented and tenacious Fighting Irish team – there remains a degree of pressure on Day.
No, he won’t be fired if the Buckeyes lose on Monday, the way many wanted after their fourth straight loss to the hated Wolverines.
Day will return to Columbus next year, as he should. He is an excellent coach, a tremendous roster builder, and a great representative of the program’s proud tradition.
However, he still needs to win on Monday, if only to start putting the doubts behind him and focusing pundits on his ability to win big games.
A loss to the Irish wouldn’t be as painful as a loss to the Wolverines, nor would it be as devastating to his job security as a loss to Tennessee in the first round, for example. That would be a punch to the gut though.
This is the conundrum he is in today.
Reaching the championship game after some great play helped erase Michigan’s impact, but it also reignited the belief that this is a uniquely talented Ohio State team. It has reset expectations The Buckeyes are the overwhelming favorite – 8.5 points per Las Vegas.
Day knows he’s lucky the playoffs expanded to 12 teams this season. And it didn’t just shift the focus — and anger — away from losing the rivalry match. It also allowed his team, which had suffered two losses, this opportunity to make amends by asking everyone to address what got them into trouble in the first place.
“Very, very grateful,” Day said this week. “I think everyone in the program is as well [grateful] Being in this situation, for many reasons.
“I think the new format has allowed our team to grow and build throughout the season,” Day continued. “As much as losses hurt, it really allows us as coaches and players to take a hard look at the issues and address them, and then it’s about fixing them over time.”
And this “reform” is the most impressive.
When Ohio State was at its best over the last three games, it looked like an unstoppable juggernaut, flattening Tennessee and Oregon. The offense was free and aggressive, a far cry from the failures against Michigan. Star receiver Jeremiah Smith has been the focus. Day was seen smiling and laughing on the sidelines.
Meanwhile, they won the semifinals over Texas due to a defense that has been stubborn almost all season, with a tendency to stand on the goal line.
“Our motto is: Give us an inch and we’ll defend it,” star linebacker Jack Sawyer said.
This is the Ohio State team everyone expected. This is a place full of veterans who turned down the NFL Draft to come back and finish the job. That’s the product of a healthy $20 million payroll. This is a team that had former coaches Urban Meyer and Jim Tressel, in the offseason, gushing over talent, with Meyer declaring it better than any college team he had ever seen.
All of this is what made the 8-5 loss to Michigan so stunning. It shouldn’t be soon. Day coached one of the worst games imaginable. There is no excuse.
What followed were calls for his job and more than 25,000 Tennessee fans who got tickets at Ohio Stadium for a playoff game — a sign of the distrust that had been strengthened among Ohio State supporters.
Now tens of thousands of Buckeyes fans will descend on Atlanta expecting to see the program’s first national title since the 2014 season.
If that happens, Ryan Day will lead a parade through Columbus and enter the offseason still struggling with Michigan’s problem, but with a championship-level ability to shrug and smile.
If not, if Ohio becomes the favorite state again…it may not go back to square one like it did in November.
It will be soon, though.
