Ryan Day stood in front of a live Big Ten Network audience and a football field full of journalists in July and essentially declared the 2021 Ohio State football season a failure.
“Maybe at some places 11–2 with a Rose Bowl victory is a good year. It isn’t at Ohio State,” the coach of the Buckeyes said. “Our three goals are: beat the team up north, win the Big Ten championship, win the national championship. That’s our goals, and those things didn’t happen last year.”
It was a remarkable statement. It articulated both admirable ambition and unsettling urgency. Daring to be the best can be a good thing, but the consequences of falling short can be stark.
With that as the standard—beat Michigan, win the Big Ten, win it all—Ohio State has had all of six “good years” in the history of a program that began in 1890. (You could make a case for a couple of other national championships won outside of the AP, UPI, BCS or College Football Playoff titles of 1942, ’54, ’57, ’68, 2002 and ’14, but they are contested claims.) If 11 victories and winning a thrilling Rose Bowl aren’t good enough, is this outlook realistic or healthy? And if that’s the expectation, how much pressure is heaped upon the current Buckeyes coming off a “bad year” like ’21?
When Ohio State’s players run into a roaring Horseshoe on Saturday night to play Notre Dame and kick off this season, they surely know what they’re getting into. It’s a lot to handle.
They must win this year, and they must atone. Another early-season, nonconference home upset loss would not go over well, but a repeat of the late-season loss to Michigan would be viewed as ruination. A postseason that does not include victory in Indianapolis in the league championship game is unacceptable. Even making the College Football Playoff, a triumph at 129 of the 131 FBS schools, does not merit Job Well Done kudos.
“The expectation is to win them all,” Day said flatly in July. “I said that in my opening press conference when I was named the head coach [in 2018], and that’s just the way it is.”
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Day has taken a good run at that impossible expectation—he’s 34–4 as coach, a preposterous record to begin a career. But after winning his first 22 regular-season games, there was that comeuppance against the Ducks. And after winning his first 24 Big Ten games, there was the beatdown in the Big House against the Wolverines. And after making the CFP his first two seasons, there was the letdown of merely going to the Rose Bowl.
This doesn’t feel like a Larry Coker at Miami situation two decades ago, but it’s something to monitor. Like Day, Coker was promoted from within, replacing Butch Davis who left for the NFL. Coker inherited an all-time great roster, won the national championship his first season (2001), then played for the championship again his second season (losing to Ohio State). Then it began to slide: two losses his third season, three in his fourth and fifth, then a 7–6 record in ’06 that got him fired. The Miami dynasty hasn’t been the same since.
After making the Playoff his first two seasons, Day experienced a tiny bit of slippage in his third—enough to notice at a place that chases perfection. Enough to raise just a tremor of concern about whether Coach Third Base—as Jim Harbaugh alluded to Day last November—can sustain or build upon the juggernaut that Urban Meyer left him, or whether it’s diminishing returns going forward. Enough to make this season mighty important.
On paper and in the cocoon of preseason, this Ohio State team should be better than 11–2. The only team anyone consistently ranked higher than the Buckeyes is the only team with commensurate expectations, Alabama. Nobody figures to have a better offense. Defensive coordinator Jim Knowles was hired at a rock-star salary to mold a top-10 unit nationally in Day’s sky-hit estimation (“That’s what we want”). As of today, Day’s squad would be solidly favored in every pre-Playoff game.
So the Ohio State urgency is backed by tangible optimism. It seemingly has the personnel, the coaching and the schedule to take a run at it all. And the hunger as well.
Take the Michigan game. The Buckeyes have lost 59 times to their historic rival, but they talk as if defeat can never be tolerated again at the hands of the Wolverines. “We had to sit on that for a calendar year,” Day said. “It’s not good. It’s something we never want to have to go through again.”
Day’s loftiest of standards have trickled down to the players. Listen to them and you can hear almost a dismissive attitude toward any 2021 accomplishments. Especially from quarterback C.J. Stroud.
At this point last season, he’d never thrown a college pass. He wound up throwing for 4,435 yards and 44 touchdowns, leading the nation in yards per attempt (10.1) and finishing second in efficiency (186.56). He was a Heisman Trophy finalist.
And he sounds completely unimpressed with himself.
“I didn’t accomplish that much,” Stroud said at Big Ten media days. “I feel like I didn’t do a lot. I barely touched my potential. … Everyone pats you on the back for the simple stuff, which I appreciate, but I’m not patting myself on the back. I do my job decently well. I don’t think I’m terrible. But I can be better in all areas.”
I asked Day about that self-evaluation from Stroud, whether his quarterback was being too hard on himself. His answer: “It says a lot about C.J. He’s very driven. He wants it really bad. I think that’s what makes him great. He did a lot of great things last year, but I think his best football is ahead of him.”
Ohio State’s best football under Day could be ahead of it this season. If it’s not—if the trinity of goals is not accomplished again this year—can the Buckeyes still have a “good” season? That’s an existential question Ohio State fans don’t want to consider.
When the publicly stated goal is to win everything, the attendant pressure is immense. And Ryan Day wouldn’t want it any other way.
