“I have to ask….Um, Michigan.” Here we go again. When we look back at Ryan Day and the Bucks’ national championship conquest, it starts feeling like a fever dream. Started the season with a 5-game heater, only to get iced by the Ducks in a 1-point heartbreaker. Still, h-ll hadn’t frozen over. What is a single loss to Day and Co., who have been rolling past ranked teams? So, letting that 32-31 game fuel the fire, Ryan Day went on another 5-game streak. Penn State? Gone. Indiana? Freaking embarrassed. Now, Bucks fans are on the wild “National Champs” high, and the only team left to complete the “OSU is the greatest team in 2024” narrative is a win against Michigan.

13-10.

Looking back, this might’ve just been a bad dream—you know, like walking into a wet bathroom with socks on. You squirm, hoping to wake up. But nope, this was real. One loss later, the Bucks extended their 0-4 skid against the Wolverines, and the entire fan base went up in flames. And amidst the chaos, one major question arose in the minds of OSU faithful: Does the natty even make sense if Day cannot win against Michigan?

“If anyone tells you, they’d rather go 1-12 and just beat the team up north. You’re crazy, you know what I mean? You’re playing this game to win championships,” OSU EDGE Jack Sawyer confessed on Channel Seven. “Unrealistic expectations”—up to a certain extent, we understand the narrative of “How can OSU lose to a crippled Michigan team?” But don’t you think mistakes happen?

If you go back and check the Wolverines and Bucks tape, Day and Chip Kelly made the mistake of trying to get their boys physical against an extremely physical Michigan team. The Wolves barely had any offensive power—he-k a walk-on QB was leading the charge for Sherrone Moore and Co. However, if there is something Michigan did well this season, it was controlling the gridiron on defense.

Hoosiers: 20 points. Illinois: 21 points. Huskies: 27 points. 

3 different ranked teams from the Big 10, who were racking in 40-30 point games, barely managed to cross past the 20-point mark. H-ll, SEC’s finest, Alabama went 13 points. This defense was knocking the wind out of anyone who tried to get close and personal.

And what Day should’ve done is rely on Will Howard’s arm and the elite Bucks receiver corps, and maybe then OSU would’ve taken the W. But regardless of what happened, it’s a shame that many Bucks fans still couldn’t find it in their hearts to forgive Day and Co. for the Bluebloods’ loss.

And what’s even more shameful is that a lot of these “faithful” Buckeyes fans took it upon themselves to enact justice—aka death threats to the HC that is 47-1 against almost every team he has faced.

“I think you’re crazy to run off Ryan Day after just 5 years.”

Often, Kirk Herbstreit‘s “lunatic fringe” comment tends to rub people of Columbus the wrong way. Yeah, you cannot label the entire fanbase as “lunatics” just because a few of them went off the rails with their threats. But was Herbie wrong?

“The time between the Michigan game and the Tennessee game was as low and dark as you could possibly imagine… They told me multiple times to have Ryan follow in his father’s footsteps and kill himself.” Reading Nina Day’s confession really made us question the integrity of the Buckeyes Nation.

Losing a game and being sad about it is one thing, but making your HC so uncomfortable that he has to hire extra security for his family and players? That is a whole new level of low. Sawyer and Herbie, and every other analyst or player who has raised their voice against the extremely impolite treatment of the Bucks nation, made sense.

You win some, you lose some—but one loss shouldn’t cost a head coach his job. That Michigan stumble lit the fire under Ohio State, sparking a comeback that led to one of the most legendary national title runs since Bama’s 2018 thriller.