Ryan Day leading Ohio State to the College Football Playoff national championship was one of the most iconic stories of the 2024 season. The coach and his team had faced a lot of scrutiny in the weeks following what was the fourth consecutive loss to rival Michigan.
The Buckeyes started the playoff campaign at home against Tennessee and brought out what was arguably their best performance of the season, defeating the Volunteers 42-17.
In a recent interview with Josh Pate, Ryan Day described what the team’s feelings looked like entering the game and how they approached the ugly situation.
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“The Tennessee game was when we came out of the locker room and there was some orange in the crowd,” Day said. “I think everybody in that stadium felt like our backs were against the wall, including us, and at that moment, it could have gone one of two ways.
“Our guys just went wild during the warm-ups and I said, ‘okay.’ At that point, I knew we were in a good place. And then just the way we came out and played early in that first quarter, you knew we weren’t gonna be denied. There was just so much pent-up stuff coming over those three weeks after the last loss. Just an angry group of guys playing that way.”
The emphatic first-round win over Tennessee calmed the atmosphere in Columbus and made the team prepare in a much better mental condition for the next challenge against Oregon. Ryan Day described to Josh Pate what the preparation for the Rose Bowl looked like.
“Going into the Rose Bowl, now it’s all kind of coming together here,” Day said. “You get like a 10-day window to start to prepare, which is a great amount of time, I think, because as a head coach, you get a little more time to work on the X’s and O’s, which was a lot of fun.”
The national championship victory has reduced the pressure on Ryan Day
Ohio State coach is one of the toughest jobs in college football and Ryan Day has felt the intensity of it since he took over from Urban Meyer. The coach has often been criticized for his near-success experience at the program and his consecutive losses to Michigan.
While the fans’ backlash reached its climax, Day led the Buckeyes to the national championship in the inaugural edition of the 12-team playoffs. He enters the 2025 season at the job in a much better situation, as there’s increased confidence in him within the Columbus fanbase.
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Edited by Akshay Saraswat
