College football stole something from Ohio State…
In order to obtain what you desire, you occasionally have to give up something you love. As the head coach of Ohio State football, Ryan Day has spent the past year learning this lesson.
He was excited about the future but also a little mocking of the path that needs to be taken to get there as he stood at a stage on Wednesday morning to talk about a busy offseason. In 2019, when he was the fresh new face on the block, eager to usher in a new era for the Buckeyes, he was a different coach. He appears to have accepted the realities of his life as a coach, is older, and has a beard. Furthermore, he doesn’t appear to be having fun.
Day remarked, “I wouldn’t call anything fun right now.” “Next year, winning will be fun. You adjust. You must adapt.
Day has finally accepted something that was probably always going to happen as we approach 2024. He gave up command of an offense that he was originally brought in to salvage in 2017 and spent the next seven years building into a formidable force by hiring an offensive coordinator. That entails delegating play-calling responsibilities to someone else and giving up the thing that makes this work so enjoyable.
His initial inspiration for doing this came after the 2022 season concluded with defeats to Georgia and Michigan. However, neither he nor the current coaching staff were prepared for such a big change. In addition, the Peach Bowl demonstrated his continued success even in defeat. The sense, the expertise, the passion, and every other adjective used to characterize the qualities of a skilled play-caller.
It’s not as though Day isn’t skilled at it anymore. He no longer has the time to provide it with the daily care it requires. He discovered in 2023 that doing so is risky and might come back to haunt you in the most crucial moments of the most crucial games.
Day remarked, “I know it has to happen.” “There’s a lot going on in college football right now. Would I like to? No. I adore the portion about football. I adore making plays. I adore being inside that place. However, I’m tiring and I simply can’t decide what to do on a Wednesday night when a game is in its third quarter and there’s a third-and-four situation on the 21-yard line. All of those are mental rehearsals that require a great deal of effort.
The definition of head coach of a collegiate football team at the highest level has evolved. In order to concentrate on all the new components that have been added over the past five years and seem to be happening on top of each other, what is happening on the field is frequently neglected.
To name a few issues that Day must handle, these are the staffing changes, the recruiting calendar that is completely nonsensical, the transfer portal, and NIL. He has too much going on to spend his Wednesday night sitting through every play that was practiced earlier in the day in an offensive meeting.
But that’s the current state of college football. If a coach hopes to achieve any kind of success, they must never take their foot off the pedal in this chaotic machine. That’s what sets it apart from the NFL.
Day stated, “There are a lot of guys, especially in the NFL, who call it and make those decisions in-game.” “I believe they do admirably. You feel like you understand the game better and have a bit more influence over the action. There are moments when you may become a little too fixated on the play call rather than the whole scenario. Those are the benefits and drawbacks of something.
Day enjoys making play calls. He enjoys having the last say over what happens. He enjoys the weekly chess games between the opposing defensive coordinators and the Xs and Os involved in formulating a strategy. He adores what is effectively the Madden video game brought to reality, albeit one that is obviously a little more sophisticated.
Few things are more satisfying than planning a play, putting in countless hours of work on it, and then witnessing its success in real time during a College Football Playoff game. Then letting your feelings run wild before quickly locking back in and starting over.
Day is giving up that because playing collegiate football won’t let him continue to enjoy himself .Day remarked, “I understand that what happened on the offensive side of the ball is what gave me this opportunity.” “I’m no longer playing that part. I have to change like that. Understand and accept that, for sure.
Day, who has only ever served as a head coach for five years, has spent the past year transitioning from someone who understood what his next move needed to be. All he needed was a little more time to come to terms with the fact that he was giving up the thing he loved most to someone he could fully rely on.
Even if Bill O’Brien decides to enroll at Boston College two weeks after arriving in Columbus, that idea won’t alter.
Day stated, “It’s not something you just wake up and decide.” “You know what’s right, and it takes a little time. However, we also won’t just place someone in that situation and tell them to “go take the offense.” That will not be successful. We took our time and were very meticulous because it had to be the perfect fit. Bill fulfilled every requirement for us.
In 2017, Day arrived as Ohio State’s offensive coordinator, eager to usher in a new era for the team’s attack. That began in Year 1 with modest gains and moved full force for the record book in Year 2. After that, he became the head coach in 2019 and set a new benchmark for the next four years. That came to an end in 2023 in part because Day was no longer the play-caller he once was because the sport was always changing and attracting him in different directions.
As a result, he starts the program in Year 8 having changed from Year 6 as head coach.
For Day, this has not been a fun offseason. It’s produced thrilling moments and given him access to what may be the best roster he’s had in Columbus. However, fun is not the point here. This is about taking the necessary steps to enable him to enjoy the greatest happiness this sport has to offer in a year.
In order to achieve your goals in life, you may need to make some sacrifices. For Day, that meant letting go of the offense he created in the hopes that a trophy would be waiting for him on the other side.
Day remarked, “Just because it’s a different role doesn’t mean it’s any more or less fun.” Everyone must accept their role because it’s a different one.If you can’t do it here, you can’t do it anyplace, is a constant challenge I issue to our coaches. That’s why we need a group of men who are specialists in various fields, and my role as head coach has changed slightly from a few years ago.