COLUMBUS, Ohio — In the postgame news conference following Ohio State’s 30-24 loss to Michigan last November, Buckeyes coach Ryan Day looked defeated and disappointed. He surely understood at that moment that despite winning 88% of his games as a coach, he and his program would now be defined by their unthinkable three-year losing streak against the Wolverines.
More than four months later, sitting in his office at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center, the 45-year-old Day is smiling, giddy and seemingly at ease. He exudes the confidence of a coach who knows how loaded his roster is, having brought back nearly all of Ohio State’s juniors who could go pro while adding some of the most successful transfers in the gate.
“At Ohio State, you have to beat the North team and win every other game,” Day said. “If that’s the expectation every year, you like your chances a lot better when you have good players. So you might as well get the best.”
If not for the NIL, Day said, “You certainly wouldn’t have seen what you’ve seen this year with us.”
After an embarrassing 14-3 Cotton Bowl loss to Missouri, Ohio State’s donors went on a spending spree. With the help of two collectives, The Foundation and The 1870 Society, the program “re-signed” linebackers JT Tuimoloau, Jack Sawyer and Tyleik Williams, TreVeyon Henderson, receiver Emeka Egbuka, cornerback Denzel Burke and guard Donovan Jackson . of which first or second day draft picks were provided.
“Coming in, our recruiting class (2021) was very strong. We knew we were capable of doing something special,” said Jackson, one of six five-star signees in his class. “But at the end of three years here, we didn’t achieve the goals we wanted to do. NIL is a controversial subject, but in this case, it gave us the assurance to go back and chase it one more time.”
With the core of his roster returning, Day stepped into the gate to plug the few remaining holes. His lineup included All-Big 12 quarterback Will Howard (Kansas State), All-SEC running back Quinshon Judkins (Ole Miss), freshman All-American safety Caleb Downs (Alabama) and veteran center Seth McLaughlin (Alabama).
The backfield tandem of Henderson and Judkins could be especially scary. Together they rushed for 5,470 career yards and 63 career TDs.
“We don’t decide who’s at the gate,” Day said. “But when the guys are there, we want to upgrade our roster in certain areas.”
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Before that Dec. 29 bowl game, Ohio State wasn’t considered a major player in the NIL-fueled gate market. In fact, retiring AD Gene Smith was one of the most vocal critics who called for the NCAA to crack down on collegiate involvement in recruiting. That came two months before a federal judge in Tennessee ruled that the NCAA can’t enforce rules that prevent collegiate teams from negotiating NIL deals with recruits.
Even after 2023, starting quarterback Kyle McCord entered the gate shortly after last year’s Michigan game and with first-rounder Lincoln Kienholz struggling against Missouri, ESPN broadcaster Dave Pasch told viewers throughout the Cotton Bowl that Day was adamant that Ohio State would not pursue another. general.
Five days later, Howard, who had previously visited Miami and USC, committed to the Buckeyes. Naturally, when Downs committed to the Buckeyes on Jan. 19 out of Alabama, The Foundation broke the news on Twitter.
Welcome to @caleb_downs2, our new Student Athlete partner! Caleb is going to do great work on and off the field as an ambassador for our charitable partners and the Columbus community. (Boom 😉) https://t.co/htkLB83pbF pic.twitter.com/bNvKx3BPRO
— THE Foundation (@TheFoundation1_) January 20, 2024
Two years ago, Day told an audience of business people that it would take $13 million in NIL money to maintain Ohio State’s roster. Today, the budget is believed to be even higher than that.
“We’ve had a lot of people come in and really help us,” Day said. “Gene (Smith) is obviously instrumental in that, but I made a lot of calls and a lot of people came on board. It just goes to show you how big the support is here.”
With the personnel in place, Day made another big decision: finding a big-name offensive coordinator to whom he could turn the play-calling over for the first time in his career. After his original pick, Bill O’Brien, left in February to become the head coach at Boston College, Day called his former college coach at New Hampshire — Chip Kelly. In a surprising move, Kelly left the coaching role at Big Ten-bound UCLA to work for Day, who worked under Kelly at the Eagles and 49ers before coming to Ohio State in 2018.
“I didn’t think about it that way,” said the 60-year-old Kelly, who enjoyed returning to his roots when he coached UCLA’s quarterbacks leading up to the bowl game. “Coaching soccer makes me happy. It is so simple.
“I never wanted to go into sports administration, but coaching turns into that in some places. I find it difficult to ask people for money.”
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That’s Day’s job now.
The fruits of all that fundraising work will be on display Saturday as Fox televises Ohio State’s spring game for the first time. Viewers will have a chance to check in on the quarterback battle between Howard and the returning Devin Brown. They’ll get their first look at freshman Jeremiah Smith, who has been so dazzling during spring camp that coaches are already talking about him as a starter.
Smith, the No. 1 recruit in the class of 2024, had been committed to Ohio State for more than a year, but caused a stir on the first day of the early signing period last December when he didn’t sign his letter of intent until that evening. . The explanation, as stated by Sports Manny Navarro, was that “Smith’s NIL representative was making sure everything the Ohio State collegiate had promised Smith during the recruiting process was also in writing.”
Jeremiah Smith 😳 pic.twitter.com/8tG66Yltsn
— Ohio State Football (@OhioStateFB) April 6, 2024
But aside from Smith and rising sophomores Downs and receiver Carnell Tate, Ohio State’s starting lineup will consist almost entirely of fourth- or fifth-year players. As many as 17 spots could be filled by players with at least one full year of starting experience, including nearly the entirety of a defense that finished last season third in the nation (4.2 yards per play allowed).
This was all a deliberate push by Day.
“We’ve been talented here in the past, but when you lose guys to the NFL after three years, you can quickly become young again,” he said. “I’ve found it in the last two years, I want to be talented but also have experience. I’ve noticed some of the teams we’ve played have been a bit more 21, 22 and I think that matters.”
He won’t say it, but those teams were Michigan’s.
Despite all that talent, however, Ohio State has two question marks — and they happen to be at the two most important positions. One is the offensive line, which struggled at times last season. Starters Jackson and tackle Josh Simmons, a 2023 transfer from San Diego State, have the left side locked in, but the right side remains in flux.
And then there’s the general. While Howard has started 27 games and led K-State to the 2022 Big 12 championship, no one would mistake him for Justin Fields or C.J. Stroud. He has yet to beat Brown, who was injured early in his first career start in the Cotton Bowl. But Howard also gives the staff a shot as the program’s first true dual-threat QB since Fields in 2020.
“We felt Will was a great fit for our team for a number of reasons,” Day said. “I’m kind of excited to see how he fits in with Chip’s offense.”
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In a way, the “Chip offense” was already an Ohio State offense. It’s mostly the same passing game that Day brought with him from Kelly’s 49ers when he was hired as OC by Urban Meyer, just with different terminology. Kelly says he’s had to catch himself calling a play by the wrong name in practice at times.
But Kelly’s impact should be felt most in the running game. Ohio State’s offense under Day has been criticized at times for too much finesse (hence Lou Holtz’s famous rant after last year’s Notre Dame win). While Kelly no longer runs his early 2010s offense at Oregon, his teams at UCLA were still synonymous with a power offense. In 2022, with dual-threat Dorian Thompson Robinson at quarterback and star tailback Zach Charbonnet behind him, the Bruins led the nation with 6.0 yards per carry.
He will now team up with Henderson and Judkins.
“I think (Kelly) likes some of the tools she has to work with,” Day said with a smile. “Our passing game was very, very successful, and his run game was very, very successful. So as we combine the two of them, it’s been fun.”
With all that talent, all that donor generosity and the hiring of an offensive coordinator, the bar hasn’t been this high in Columbus since Meyer’s Buckeyes were coming off their national title in 2014. Ending Michigan’s drought will be a core expectation, but Ohio State must at least play for its first national championship in a decade, a task made more difficult this season with the 12-team playoff.
“It wasn’t like it was broken,” Day said. “The truth is that in the last two years we have moved away from achieving our goals. We haven’t beaten our opponent in the last two years, that stings, but we were one game away from Georgia (in the 2022 semifinal). We’re trying to figure out that last 1 percent, 2 percent. These last works.”
And Ohio State has poured a lot of money into discovering these latest projects.
(Photo: Jason Mowry/Getty Images)
