COLUMBUS, Ohio – In his postgame press conference following Ohio State’s 30-24 loss to Michigan last November, Buckeyes coach Ryan Day seemed defeated and dejected. He surely realized at that point that despite winning 88 percent of his games as a head coach, he and his program would now be defined by their unthinkable three-year losing streak to the Wolverines.
More than four months later, sitting in his office at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center, Day, 45, is smiling, giddy and seemingly calm. He exudes the confidence of a coach who knows how loaded his roster is, having brought back nearly every Ohio State junior who could have gone pro while adding some of the portal’s most successful transfers.
“At Ohio State, you have to beat Team Up North and win every other game,” Day said. “If that is the expectation every year, you like the possibilities much better when you have good players. So, it is better to get the best.”
If it weren’t for 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 donors went on a big spending spree. With the help of two collectives, The Foundation and The 1870 Society, the program “re-signed” defensive linemen JT Tuimoloau, Jack Sawyer and Tyleik Williams, running back TreVeyon Henderson, receiver Emeka Egbuka, cornerback Denzel Burke and guard Donovan Jackson, all of whom were projected day one or two draft picks.
“Coming into it, our (2021) recruiting class was very strong. We knew we could do something special,” said Jackson, one of six five-star signees in his class. “But at the end of three years here, we did not achieve the goals we set for ourselves. NIL is a controversial topic, but in this case, it gave us the peace of mind to come back and address it once again.”
With the core of his roster returning, Day stepped into the portal to plug the few remaining holes. His haul 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 experienced center Seth McLaughlin (Alabama).
The backfield duo of Henderson and Judkins could be particularly scary. Together they have rushed for a combined 5,470 yards and 63 touchdowns in their careers.
“We don’t decide who’s in the portal,” Day said. “But when the guys are there, we want to improve our squad in certain areas.”
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Before that Dec. 29 bowl game, Ohio State was not considered a major player in the NIL-driven portal market. In fact, retired AD Gene Smith was one of the staunchest critics who called on the NCAA to crack down on crowd involvement in recruiting. This was two months before a federal judge in Tennessee ruled that the NCAA cannot enforce rules that prevent collectives from negotiating NIL agreements with recruits.
Even after 2023 starting quarterback Kyle McCord entered the portal shortly after last year’s Michigan game, and with third-year freshman Lincoln Kienholz flailing against Missouri, ESPN broadcaster Dave Pasch told viewers during the Cotton Bowl that Day had insisted that Ohio State would not pursue another quarterback.
Five days later, Howard, who had previously visited Miami and USC, committed to the Buckeyes. It’s telling that when Downs committed to the Buckeyes on Jan. 1. 19 of Alabama, the Foundation broke the news on Twitter.
Welcome to the, @caleb_downs2, our new student-athlete partner! Caleb will do a great job on and off the field as an ambassador for our charitable partners and in the Columbus community. (Boom 😉) pic.twitter.com/bNvKx3BPRO
— THE Foundation (@TheFoundation1_) January 20, 2024
Two years ago, Day he told an audience of businessmen It would take $13 million in NIL money to maintain Ohio State’s roster. Today it is believed that the budget is even higher.
“A lot of people stepped up and really helped us,” Day said. “Gene (Smith) is obviously instrumental in this, but I made a lot of calls and a lot of people stepped up. He just shows how great the support is here.”
With the staff in place, Day made another big decision: find a big-name offensive coordinator to whom he could turn the plays for the first time in his career. After his initial choice, Bill O’Brien, who left in February to become the head coach of Boston College, Day called his former college coach at New Hampshire, Chip Kelly. In a surprising move, Kelly stepped down as the head coach at Big Ten-bound UCLA to work for Day, who worked with Kelly on the Eagles and 49ers before coming to Ohio State in 2018.
“I didn’t think of it that way,” said Kelly, 60, who enjoyed returning to his roots when he coached UCLA’s quarterbacks before their bowl game. “Coaching football makes me happy. It’s as simple as that.
“I never wanted to go into athletic administration, but the job of head coach is becoming that in certain places. It is very difficult for me 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, when Fox televises Ohio State’s spring game for the first time. Viewers will have the opportunity to watch the quarterback battle between Howard and returnee Devin Brown. They’ll get their first look at rookie receiver Jeremiah Smith, who has been so dazzling during spring training that coaches are already talking about him as a starter.
Smith, the No. 1 recruit in the 2024 class, 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 night. . The explanation, as reported the athletic one Manny Navarro, was that “Smith’s NIL representative was making sure that everything the Ohio State collective 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 be made up almost entirely of fourth- or fifth-year players. Up to 17 positions could be filled by players with at least one year of experience as a full-time starter, including almost the entirety of a defense that finished third in the country last season (4.2 yards allowed per play).
All of which was an intentional push on Day’s part.
“We’ve had talent here in the past, but when you lose guys to the NFL after three years, you can quickly go back to being young,” he said. “I have identified it in recent years: I want to have talent but also have experience. I noticed that some of the teams we played against were over 21 or 22 years old, and I think that matters.”
He won’t say it, but those teams were from Michigan.
However, despite all that talent, Ohio State has two question marks, and they are arguably at the two most important positions. One is the offensive line, which struggled at times last season. Returning starters Jackson and tackle Josh Simmons, a 2023 transfer from San Diego State, have the left side locked down, but the right side continues to change.
And then there’s the quarterback. While Howard started 27 games and led K-State to the 2022 Big 12 championship, no one would confuse him with Justin Fields or CJ Stroud. He still hasn’t beaten Brown, who was injured early in his first run as a Cotton Bowl starter. But Howard also presents the staff with an opportunity as the program’s first true dual-threat quarterback since Fields in 2020.
“We felt like Will was a great fit for our team for a lot of reasons,” Day said. “I’m excited to see how he fits into Chip’s offense.”
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In a way, “Chip’s offense” was already Ohio State’s offense. It’s pretty much the same passing game that Day brought with him from Kelly’s 49ers when Urban Meyer hired him as OC, just with different terminology. Kelly says he’s sometimes had to catch himself calling a play with the wrong name in practice.
But Kelly’s impact should be felt most in the running game. Ohio State’s offense under Day has been criticized at times for being too subtle (hence his infamous Lou Holtz rant after last year’s Notre Dame win). While Kelly no longer runs his Oregon offense of the early 2010s, his UCLA teams were still synonymous with a powerful running attack. In 2022, with dual-threat Dorian Thompson Robinson at quarterback and star running back Zach Charbonnet behind him, the Bruins led the country with 6.0 yards per carry.
He will now work with Henderson and Judkins.
“I think (Kelly) likes some of the tools he has to work with,” Day said with a smile. “Our passing game has been very, very successful, and their running game has been very, very successful. So combining the two has been fun.”
With all that talent, all the generosity of those donors and the splashy offensive coordinator hire, the bar hasn’t been higher in Columbus since Meyer’s Buckeyes were coming off their 2014 national title run. Ending Michigan’s drought will be a basic expectation, but Ohio State needs to at least play for its first national championship in a decade, a task made more difficult this season with the 12-team playoffs.
“This wasn’t broken,” Day said. “The truth is that we have been one step away from achieving our goals for the last two years. We haven’t beaten our rival in recent years, that hurts me, but we were one play away against Georgia (in the 2022 semifinal). We’re trying to figure out that last 1 percent, 2 percent. Those last plays.”
And Ohio State has invested a lot of money in figuring out those last few plays.
(Photo: Jason Mowry/Getty Images)
