You might say if Ryan Day was a poker player, he has placed all of his chips in the middle of the table.
Day, who just wrapped up his third full season as the Ohio State coach, is going all-in on his team’s prospects to win the national championship in 2022.
How do we know that? Because he has basically gutted his assistant coaching staff in an effort to shore up areas that were, in the minds of many, deficient in 2021.
So far, Day has replaced four of his assistant coaches. It’s unclear if this will be the end of the purge or not as news comes out of the Woody Hayes Athletic Center in small drips and drabs.
This much we do know: The Rose Bowl reinforced to Day that his Ohio State team will have the nation’s most effective – if not efficient – passing offense in 2022. Quarterback C.J. Stroud threw for an OSU and Rose Bowl record 573 yards and six touchdowns, while wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba caught 15 passes for an OSU and all-time bowl record 347 yards and three scores. Freshman Marvin Harrison Jr. caught three touchdown passes, while his classmate Emeka Egbuka and sophomore Julian Fleming look they will also cushion the blow of losing Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave to the NFL.
That amazing 48-45 win over Utah in the Rose Bowl capped an otherwise unfulfilling 11-2 season for the Buckeyes. They missed out on a fifth straight Big Ten championship and a shot at a third consecutive College Football Playoff berth.
Why was that? Well, the Buckeyes got manhandled and outflanked in their two regular season losses to Oregon and Michigan. They struggled to establish the run offensively in both losses, while getting destroyed defensively by a mixture of run and pass plays in each of those games.
Over the years, we have seen different approaches at Ohio State. Back in 1995 after Michigan trampled the Ohio State defense, defensive coordinator Bill Young left for Oklahoma. Head coach John Cooper elevated Fred Pagac to the coordinator’s job. The Silver Bullets were formed and flirtations with national championships – as close as Coop would get to the brass ring – followed with No. 2 finishes in 1996 and 1998.
Jim Tressel rarely got rid of anybody. He chose the slow-and-steady loyalty approach and it generally paid off as his teams almost always beat Michigan and were more times than not in the Big Ten and national championship pictures.
When Urban Meyer did not like the defense after dropping the last two games in 2013, he jettisoned Everett Withers and brought in Chris Ash to work with Luke Fickell on re-forming the defense. The result was a national championship in 2014.
When the offense led by Ed Warinner and Tim Beck faltered in the 2015 and ’16 seasons, Meyer made a change. He brought in Ryan Day to get things figured out. The result has been a collection of several of the best offensive seasons Ohio State has ever seen. Day was ultimately tapped to be the one to replace Meyer.
Day came to his personal crossroads this year after this dysfunctional Ohio State season came to an end. On offense, the Buckeyes weren’t able to run the ball effectively when they wanted to run it and needed to run it against their top opponents. The fault for this came back to the offensive line, which also had wholesale breakdowns in pass protection in the season-defining loss at Michigan.
Greg Studrawa had helped OSU win a ton of games and four Big Ten titles in his six years on the staff. But this was the time Day decided to make a complete break and go in a new direction.
Likewise on defense, coordinator Kerry Coombs’ schemes and play calling did not hold up in the early season loss to Oregon. Certainly, there were also personnel issues with so many young players pressed into service as both Minnesota and Oregon scored 30 points on the Buckeyes – something almost unheard of in consecutive games.
Day moved play calling duties to secondary coach Matt Barnes… and everything seemed OK as the Buckeyes reeled off nine straight wins and went to Michigan playing for a fifth straight berth in the conference championship game. But Michigan’s offense – not exactly known for its prolific production – lined up and blew the Buckeyes off the ball in a performance that was reminiscent of 1995.
This was Michigan’s Miami-in-2003 or Alabama-in-2015 moment as the Wolverines’ biggest win in over 20 years catapulted them into their first-ever Big Ten title game and, ultimately, their first College Football Playoff berth.
After that rough loss, Day acted proactively. Within two weeks, he had gotten athletic director Gene Smith to sign off on a two-year deal worth nearly $2 million a year for Oklahoma State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles. Knowles, a Cornell graduate, had re-made defenses at Duke and Oklahoma State. It was clear if Coombs was coming back, it would be in a lessened capacity.
Shortly after the Rose Bowl, Barnes jumped off the merry-go-round to accept the defensive coordinator’s position at Memphis. That opened a spot in the secondary.
Late last week, some of the dominoes started to fall. Studrawa was unceremoniously shown the door. UCLA offensive coordinator Justin Frye, an Indiana graduate, was quickly tapped to replace him as OSU’s new offensive line coach. While Studrawa may have favored zone blocking schemes, it seems Frye prefers a gap blocking scheme. It’s unclear how much those views — or the idea OSU played four tackles on its offensive line in 2021 — had to do with this change.
At the same time, there were rumors that defensive line coach Larry Johnson might retire and that Coombs would be let go. As we write this – and as far as we know – Johnson will remain on the staff. He was cited by top national defensive tackle prospect Hero Kanu as one of the reasons he announced for OSU during last Saturday’s All-American Bowl. Johnson is expected to stay on at least one more year to coach Kanu and the rest of the talented linemen he has signed in the last two classes (i.e. J.T. Tuimoloau and Jack Sawyer).
News began leaking earlier today, however, that Coombs and linebackers coach Al Washington would not be returning in 2022. The linebacker group has been a bone of contention at Ohio State for much of the last five years. Previous linebackers coach Bill Davis did not distinguish himself as a recruiter or developer. Washington, it seemed, had very little raw material to work with.
It was believed, however, that Washington would be given the 2022 season to see what he could do with the returning linebackers as well as a pair of talented newcomers in national top 50 prospects C.J. Hicks and Gabe Powers from Ohio. That will not be the case, however.
With spots open on the staff, Day moved quickly to hire highly regarded Perry Eliano from Cincinnati to coach safeties and former Buckeye Tim Walton to coach the cornerbacks. Walton has been in coaching for 23 seasons, including nine years in the NFL (and this past year working with Meyer with the Jacksonville Jaguars).
So with no fanfare, that ends Coombs’ second stint with Ohio State. It’s unclear what his next step might be. Likewise, this is a tough career break for the Columbus native Washington, who probably would have liked a longer stay in his hometown.
Presumably, this leaves Johnson to continue coaching the defensive line, Knowles to coach the linebackers and Eliano and Walton to share the secondary. Special teams coach Parker Fleming would probably fill in around the edges.
From Day’s standpoint, he knows he has the passing attack on offense to line up and outscore probably eight of the teams on OSU’s revamped 2022 schedule without breaking a sweat.
But these changes are what he believes will be necessary to win those other four games. That’s through balance on offense with an improved running game… and better pass protection against OSU’s top opponents. And also tthrough a competent yet attacking defensive scheme that keeps opponents from exploiting weaknesses so easily.
That is a formula the Ohio State coach sees as incumbent to not only win the Big Ten and get into the CFB Playoff but to bring a national championship back to Ohio State.
(As an aside, if we could make just one more request from Coach Day, it might be for he and his staff to go into the transfer portal and finding a pair of difference makers — one on the defensive line and one at linebacker. We aren’t looking for an All-American, per se. But if there are any major conference guys who tallied seven or more sacks at defensive end or 80 or more tackles at linebacker, they might want to kick the tires on them. No more band-aid transfers for depth. Just looking for a couple of personnel upgrades in those two position groups which could be huge to the bottom line in 2022.)
Day will go from making roughly $6.7 million in 2021 to $7.6 million this coming year as part of a contract that runs through the 2026 season. It’s unclear – as coaching salaries for his contemporaries like Mel Tucker at Michigan State and James Franklin at Penn State skyrocket – whether Gene Smith will take up any talks of a raise for Day.
We do know his name has been mentioned in connection with various NFL job openings. For now, though, it seems like Day is coaching and acting on behalf of where his feet are, and that is very clearly at Ohio State.
With the amazing tandem of Stroud and Smith-Njigba leading the way, the window to win a national championship is now – as in the next 12 months. They will both almost certainly be off to the NFL in time for the 2023 NFL Draft.
The schedule could not be much more favorable. Ohio State has Notre Dame, Wisconsin, Iowa and Michigan all visiting Ohio Stadium as part of the best home schedule I’ve ever seen. The road games at Michigan State and Penn State give you a bit of pause. But if OSU can go 13-0 with wins over all of those teams, the Buckeyes would almost assuredly be the top seed for next year’s CFB Playoff.
And then you take your chances to try and bring home that elusive national championship. Remembering 2014, we know it takes a lot of good luck and perseverance to complete that mission.
But, with his actions since the Michigan game, Day clearly decided the status quo was not good enough. Through each of these moves, it appears he has put this program in position to go after the sport’s ultimate prize.
He has gone all-in. The next 12 months will show if his gamble will pay off.
