Dave Portnoy and Ohio State head coach Ryan Day have spent the past two years trading shots without ever needing to share a room. Portnoy, a Michigan graduate and one of the Wolverines’ loudest supporters, has made a habit of questioning Day’s nerve in big games.
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Their feud has moved beyond the usual Michigan-Ohio State trash talk. Portnoy has accused Day and Ohio State of pressuring FOX Sports to remove him from Big Noon Kickoff. Now the Buckeyes have handed Portnoy another reason to take aim.
“I said to Ohio State fans. Oh, the quarterback’s down. Let’s see how Ryan Day coaches. Nobody likes injuries. Let’s see how good of a coach this guy is without the quarterback,” Portnoy said in a video he posted on X after the OSU vs USC game on Saturday. “What does he do? For the billionth time, he poops himself. He pees in the leg.”
The remark was crude and personal, not a critique of Day’s play-calling. Portnoy used a bathroom-humor insult aimed at Day’s nerve, framed it as a recurring pattern, and delivered it right after a loss, building on weeks of accusations that Day had pushed FOX to remove him. In the context of their feud, that made it far more than routine rivalry trash talk.
No. 2 Ohio State traveled to Los Angeles on October 31 and lost 30-18 to USC. The Trojans had just been beaten 24-7 by Wisconsin, and Portnoy had little regard for Lincoln Riley’s team before kickoff.
Portnoy called Riley “soft as a marshmallow,” described USC as a team that should not have been able to dominate Ohio State, and said watching the Buckeyes get “punched” in the mouth made him “sick to my stomach.”
The quarterback injury gave Portnoy the opening he wanted. Julian Sayin was unavailable, leaving freshman Luke Fahey to make his first career start against a USC team that had plenty to prove after its loss at Wisconsin.
The Trojans opened with a 69-yard touchdown pass from Jayden Maiava to Trent Mosley on their second play from scrimmage. They added a nine-yard rushing score later in the first quarter and carried a 20-9 lead into halftime.
USC then forced and recovered a fumble to open the second half and turned that possession into another touchdown. Ohio State didn’t score a touchdown until the fourth quarter.
Day’s team had to settle for four field goals before Fahey found Jeremiah Smith for a one-yard touchdown with 2:12 remaining. Their two-point attempt failed, and USC recovered the ensuing onside kick before adding a field goal to seal the result.
That sequence gave Portnoy plenty of material. He accused Day of having no answer, even though the game was not quite as one-sided statistically as his video suggested.
“Instead of watching tape on everything that Dave says like he’s going to be playing this in his bedroom crying tonight,” Portnoy said. “Maybe get the game tape out and get a game plan together. This was disgusting.”
Ohio State actually outgained USC 464-338 yards and had 25 first downs to the Trojans’ 15. The Buckeyes also held the ball for nearly 40 minutes. But they managed only 18 points, failed to score in the third quarter, and went just 3-for-4 in the red zone.
USC, though, made its opportunities count, scoring on all four of its red-zone trips. The difference was not how much ground Ohio State covered. It was what the Buckeyes did when they reached scoring range.
Portnoy’s latest attack comes after a particularly uncomfortable few weeks in his relationship with Ohio State. In early October, he was removed from FOX’s Big Noon Kickoff. He blamed Ohio State and Day, claiming the program had complained about his presence on the show and pushed the network to take him off the broadcast.
He told Front Office Sports that Ohio State executives had shown FOX executives a 30-to-45-minute compilation of his criticism of the Buckeyes and Day.
Portnoy also said Day believed he had “doxxed” him during the Michigan sign-stealing controversy. That dispute involved reporting about Day’s brother and alleged efforts to gather information on Michigan’s program under Jim Harbaugh.
“He doesn’t realize it was a huge story already within the Michigan–Ohio State world,” Portnoy said.
This was not the first time Portnoy has gone after Day following a major defeat in 2026. Ohio State had opened the season strongly before blowing a 23-3 lead against Texas in September and losing 24-23. Portnoy called it one of the great collapses and accused Day of failing to put an opponent away.
Even after the USC game, Portnoy said he is already looking ahead to the rivalry.
“I want Michigan great. I want Ohio State great,” Portnoy said. “I want the rivalry to be good.”
He still took a swipe at the Buckeyes’ next opponents, joking that Ohio State could go to Rutgers and win comfortably while struggling against teams on the West Coast.
Despite the two losses on Ohio State’s record, a 10-win season can easily land Day in the playoffs, especially through the automatic Big 10 title spot. OSU remains on track to the Big 10 title game, and if it wins it, the playoff committee would have little excuse to exclude it over the quarterback situation, as they did with FSU in 2023.