The so-called ‘lunatic fringe’ (not our words) may disagree, but Ohio State was never going to fire Ryan Day

Ryan Day will not be fired. It never should have even been an honest talking point among the media and parts of the Ohio State fanbase that ABC’s Kirk Herbstreit labeled as the “lunatic fringe,” Saturday night in a sardonic spiel at the end of Ohio State’s 42-17 curb-stomping of Tennessee in the first round of the College Football Playoff. 

Day is a prisoner of both his own successes and failures. Under him, the Buckeyes are 1-4 against Michigan, 2-3 in the CFP, and 65-3 against every other opponent he’s faced. Day’s Buckeyes have done most of the requisite things to try and bust through this odd ceiling: Michigan and the College Football Playoff. 

His get out-of-jail card for a while was that he didn’t take embarrassing losses to the likes of Purdue and Iowa, like Urban Meyer did as a huge favorite. But Thanksgiving weekend was a double whammy: a loss to the Wolverines as nearly a three-touchdown favorite and an embarrassing on-field melee postgame. The losses include embarrassments to the two best Michigan teams in the last 25 years and a missed field goal to eventual national champion Georgia at the stroke of midnight. 

Ohio State is currently favored to beat Oregon in a Rose Bowl rematch on New Year’s Day and holds the second-best odds to win a national championship at +360, behind Texas (+310). Would a national title give Day a clean slate with the Bucknuts? There may be an asterisk involved, depending on who you ask. 

Even if Saturday was the last game of the season, the fact is Day is 66-10 in Columbus, including three games in 2018 when Meyer was suspended. Who’s doing better than that?

When you have success like Day’s, you’re more likely to be approximately the most successful in a school’s history, but such is the task at…

Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/the-so-called-lunatic-fringe-not-our-words-may-disagree-but-ohio-state-was-never-going-to-fire-ryan-day/

Author : Richard Johnson

Publish date : 2024-12-23 19:37:00

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