Ryan Day will have all eyes on him this season, returning as the leader of a National Championship defending program. He has the potential of going to the highest possible level, in tune with Ohio State’s lofty standards. Day has a slew of achievements to his name as the Buckeyes HC, and will earn more with time. He is already close to Urban Meyer’s numbers from his time at Columbus. Despite so many positives about his career, he is yet to get his hands on one particular title. It’s something that Urban Meyer failed to win in his career.

Day became OSU’s head coach after Meyer was put on administrative leave, in light of the Zack Smith controversy. He started his career by winning three games in a row. In 2019, his first full season as a head coach, he led the Buckeyes to a Big 10 Championship win. And followed it up with another one in 2020. He also made the trip to the National Championship game, only to fall short. Now with the 2024 title in the bag and continuing OSU’s legacy as a blue-blood program, he enters the 2025 season as one of the best coaches in college football. ESPN ranks Day as the No. 1 coach of the year.

He has taken the bar so high at Ohio State that the baseline for them is going to be a No. 1 ranking or nothing. That’s why, being one of the Buckeyes’ winningest coaches, Ryan Day will find it difficult to win the Big 10 Coach of the Year Award, because he has one more achievement to win. Nicole Auerbach said in a July 10 episode of NBC’s Rushing the Field, “He has to get to the Michigan game. Again, nothing he does in the lead-up to that matters. Texas doesn’t matter. New quarterback, none of that stuff matters until that game. And, you know what, what if Ryan Day wins that game? He kind of should get Big 10 coach of the year.”

The Buckeyes fell against an unranked Michigan, continuing Ryan Day’s record against his arch nemesis with 1-4. If Ryan Day has to win the Big 10 Coach of the Year, a perfect, clean sweep season has to be the bare minimum. And that includes a win against Michigan, which is the Buckeyes’ last regular-season game. That might be the only thing remaining that’s putting off the achievement for him. “Think about how we’re looking at Ryan Day right now versus how we looked at Ryan Day after they lost to Oregon, after they lost to Michigan last year,” former OSU star Joshua Perry noted. “[The] narrative on him was like, really good coach, wins all the games he’s supposed to, but like has not really done well in the big one,” he added.

Even Urban Meyer, the college football legend, could not win the Big 10 Coach of the Year at OSU. His record with the Buckeyes stands at 83-9, and he ruled the conference throughout the entirety of his stay at Columbus. Meyer became a staple at the Big 10 Championship game, making it to the coveted game in all 7 of his seasons with the team. As Ohio State HC, he also has one Natty and 3 Big 10 titles in the bag. And yet, voters repeatedly looked elsewhere and Meyer could not get the honor of being Coach of the Year. Ryan Day is also at 7 seasons now, and entering his 8. But if the title remained elusive for such a phenomenal predecessor, imagine the lengths Day has to go to win it. It’s 12-0 or nothing, and bragging rights over Michigan for the HC.

Ryan Day’s success will be measured by his record against Michigan first

Ryan Day has a national title in the bag. But will Ohio State fans be happy with it, especially because it came after losing to Michigan? Jim Harbaugh proved to be the dominator in this new streak established between college football’s most intense rivalries. Ryan Day’s reputation also has the tag of not being able to win against Michigan for a series of years now. And Day has got to put this worrying trend in the past now. Josh Pate said in a July 7 episode of his show, “You can go win a national title and still have failed in your most important role as the head coach somewhere.”

“My personal college football worldview is that if you’re the head coach at Ohio State, your job’s to beat Michigan, and then the Big 10 can be won, and then the national title can be won in that order. But beating Michigan’s number one, and he hadn’t done it in several years now,” he added. Ryan Day has the big ones struck off his list. But a dominance over Michigan is yet to come in his era in Columbus. The last one was a loss that bit a little too harshly at Buckeyes fans. An unranked Michigan team, with a first-year HC in Sherrone Moore, and on rocky ground after a shocking scandal, managed to defeat Ohio State.

Ryan Day has the title of being the best coach already. He’s already one of the greats. But has he acquired the status of a legend? To maybe come close to that, he has to beat Michigan and sit himself as the No. 1 team in the country. Will Ryan Day be able to nail both in one season?