If you really want to make heads explode, point out that the Indiana game isn't a gimme either and that Cincinnati at home to start the season is a tough way to start things out for a new coach. Indiana went toe-to-toe with both Michigan (at Michigan) and Ohio State (at Ohio State), and in both games they were into the 4th quarter, hanging tough, when the wheels eventually fell off due to injury (Michigan) and/or lack of depth (both games). Remember Urban falling to the ground grabbing his head because he was so stressed? That was the Indiana game. Indiana has a lot coming back, including a pretty good starting QB in Peyton Ramsey. What's interesting is that they brought in some more QBs through transfer and recruiting, and Ramsey right now isn't officially considered the starter by their coach.
Whatever you want to say about Day, good or bad, right now he's basically an unknown entity. What we do know for certain is that he is NOT Urban Meyer. Urban Meyer just had the most successful coaching career in B1G history, and now he's gone, so it's not crazy to expect a dropoff. Yes, he recruited phenomenally well, but OSU has almost always filled its roster with top 10 recruiting classes.
Others mentioned the unexpected difficulties in the transition from Osborne to Solich, and I think that that's worth digging into more. I think that Solich played a larger role than Husker fans imagine in Osborne's offense, and I think that he couldn't wait to try out some new ideas when he took over the reins. Nobody now is going to say that Solich and Day would compare in offensive acumen, but that's as much a reflection of the media's infatuation with passing over running than anything else. One of the problems with Solich's offense is that he was always adding more to it, and the burden kept falling on the QB. I have a suspicion that something similar is about to happen at Ohio State.
Now let's look at Ryan Day's predilections: he REALLY likes to throw the ball. I mean, he
REALLY likes to throw the ball. His co-OC last year was Kevin Wilson, the former head coach at Indiana and before that the OC at Oklahoma, and he will again be a co-OC at Ohio State ... and he
R E A L L Y likes to throw the ball. To replace his former position as co-OC, Day brought in the OC from Oklahoma State (Mike Yurcich), and--I think that you're going to see a pattern here--he
REALLY, REALLY, REALLY likes to throw the ball. Do you know who didn't really like to throw the ball that much? Urban Meyer. What happens when you take away his influence as the chief decision maker and you replace his voice with another pass-happy Big 12 OC? Even the RBs coach has shown a tendency to prefer pop passes and other gimmicky plays to traditional power football, so who's left on that offensive staff to occasionally point out, "Hey, guys, we have great O-linemen, and, you know--3 yards and a cloud of dust--we kind of have a history of pounding the football, so, I don't know, maybe we should run the ball more?" Of the three coaches--Day, Wilson, and Yurcich--Day would probably be considered the coach who is the LEAST pass-obsessed, but nobody will ever confuse his offensive philosophy with John McKay, Darrell Royal, Bo Schembechler, or Woody Hayes. A power running game doesn't just create itself. A well orchestrated running game requires just as many reps in practice to work on timing and footwork as a passing game does, but it has been my experience in a couple of decades in the football coaching world that most pass-happy coaches look at the running game as a necessary boring thing to set up the next passing play ... and so they neglect it.
I think that Ryan Day is probably an excellent young coaching candidate, but outside of the states of Alabama and Texas, there isn't a more demanding (i.e. "spoiled") fan base in America than Ohio State's. Ryan Day is stepping into a white-hot fire, and I don't know that it's possible that he can fully understand the implications of that yet. He could be a great coach, and he could win a ton of games, but it still won't be enough if he isn't at Urban Meyer's level of success. It was the same for Solich. Osborne said--referencing himself following Devaney, but probably even more true for Solich following him--the toughest job in coaching is to follow a legend. Alabama fired anybody and everybody for nearly three decades because they kept expecting anybody they hired to equal Bear Bryant's success. When Saban retires, they'll likely do the same. It is a rarity at every level of football to have a coach who follows a legend be successful, and often that is because of the expectation rather than anything to do with the new coach's ability.
Here are some things at Ohio State this season that are likely to make Ryan Day's life miserable:
- Ohio State will not look as good as expected in one of their early games, such as Cincinnati and/or Indiana; even if they win, and even if they win big, it won't matter because their fans are nuts;
- Nebraska is a smaller school with a smaller alumni base in a less populated area, so our football media often seems like an echo chamber, repeating whatever narrative is popular at the moment--Ohio State currently has all of that multiplied by about 5. All of those full-time Ohio State media folks need something to talk about, and whatever Day's team does wrong against a Cincinnati or Indiana (or Nebraska) is ALL that they're going to talk about, endlessly, unmercifully, until they win big enough to quiet them down for a week or so;
- Day has no prior connections to Ohio State before working under Urban Meyer, and we're about to be reminded as to why that matters; Woody Hayes wouldn't even hire grad assistants who didn't have OSU connections; at least Solich had Nebraska connections for decades before we decided that he was awful because he wasn't Tom Osborne;
- Ohio State is going to throw the ball a lot this year; Ohio State fans historically don't like throwing the ball a lot; Woody Hayes is the guy who literally created the original "three yards and a cloud of dust" offense; he's also often credited with saying "three things can happen when you throw the ball, and two of them are bad,"* and Buckeye fans and media were quoting Woody last year when they lost to Purdue because they weren't able to run the ball effectively in the Red Zone; it actually came up a lot in last year's media critiques; the Buckeye fans and media like passing the ball as long as the pass is completed, and the team is winning, but anything else? UNACCEPTABLE!
- Ohio State is likely to lose at least a couple B1G conference games this year--pick your teams, it doesn't matter--and that hasn't happened since Luke Fickle was there as an interim coach; remember him? How will the media respond? see #2 above;
- One of those Ohio State losses will more than likely be to Michigan, and that will leave the taste of bile in OSU fans and media for the next month as they get ready for a bowl game; guess what? Urban Meyer never lost to Michigan;
- The top OSU players--much like Michigan's last year--are unlikely to stick around to play in a bowl game if they're going pro, so ... the bowl game could be a problem. Guess what? Urban Meyer didn't lose any bowl games at Ohio State unless he was playing Clemson;
- I should probably mention that Justin Fields doesn't appear to be the can't-miss QB that you'd expect since every other QB left campus; he looked like AJ Bush throwing the ball in the Ohio State spring game ... seriously; you should watch the video that shows all of his passes, and then you should read the comments from Georgia fans below where they basically say that that was apparently what he looked like all of last year at Georgia, too; I don't know if you've heard this before, but QB is kind of a big deal in football ... especially if you have a head coach and 2 OCs who like to throw the ball the way that I like to breathe.
Ryan Day is screwed. It's not because he is or isn't a great coach. It's because he's coaching at Ohio State after the most successful coach by winning percentage in Ohio State history. Every mistake he makes will be amplified to ridiculous proportions by the fans and media, and every success he has will be assumed as normal and expected. In order to keep the wolves at bay, he needs to more or less match or exceed what Urban Meyer did: he cannot lose more than 1 conference game per year; he cannot lose to Michigan; he cannot lose a bowl game to anybody other than Clemson, and even that is not really acceptable. That's all. Just win all of your games, and everything will be fine ... for now.
*there are reasonable arguments that Robert Neyland at Tennessee or Darrell Royal at Texas may have been the first to say it, but it definitely suited Woody's offensive philosophy.
