‘He’s going to get it done’

As he stood on a makeshift stage on the Covelli Center floor for an introductory news conference on Wednesday afternoon, Ross Bjork gestured toward a spectator.

Bjork, the Texas A&M athletic director who was hired this week to lead Ohio State’s athletic department beginning this summer, raised his left arm to point in the direction of Ryan Day, the Buckeyes’ football coach who was seated in a row of folding chairs.

“This guy right here,” Bjork said, “he’s going to get it done, and it’s going to be a lot of fun when we win those championships.”

Jan 17, 2024; Columbus, OH, USA; Ohio State Buckeyes football coach Ryan Day listens during a press conference to name Ross Bjork the university’s new athletic director at the Covelli Center.

The line drew applause from the small crowd that included members of the university’s board of trustees, coaches and staffers among the attendees.

In his first public appearance as the next athletic director at Ohio State, Bjork was eager to throw his support behind Day.

Over five seasons at the helm of the Buckeyes, Day has gone 53-8 overall, three times leading them to the College Football Playoff and putting them on the cusp of a national championship.

But only one of those appearances has come in the last three seasons, a stretch that has coincided with consecutive losses to archrival Michigan, the longest skid by Ohio State in The Game in a quarter century, raising the pressure from a fervent fan base.

It’s been almost a decade since the Buckeyes captured the first national title of the playoff era, and the last time they finished atop the Big Ten was in 2020.

Bjork described himself as a “football guy.” In the early 1990s, he was a fullback at Emporia State, a Division II program in Kansas, and has spent the last 12 years running athletic departments in the Southeastern…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/ohio-state-ad-ross-bjork-000449816.html

Author : The Columbus Dispatch

Publish date : 2024-01-18 00:04:49

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.