Has Judgement Day Come for Ryan Day and Ohio State?

With #2 Ohio State's devastating loss to the 6-5 Michigan Wolverines at home 13-10, this loss now marks the fourth consecutive year that the Buckeyes have come up short against the Wolverines, with all of them coming during Ryan Day’s tenure at Ohio State. However, this loss is so much more devastating for Ohio State than any of those previous three Michigan losses, as this year’s Michigan team was unranked, barely bowl eligible, and were missing several key players in this game. This was Ohio State’s game to lose, and boy did they do exactly that. What happened in this game that resulted in Ohio State walking away with the loss to their biggest rival in the Shoe?

Firstly, Ohio State took the completely wrong approach to this game. It is known that Michigan plays a very tough brand of football on both sides of the ball. Every year, Michigan is determined to be stronger and dominate the line of scrimmage against Ohio State and that is exactly what happened again this year. However, with Ohio State’s skill position talent, they should have been able to easily beat Michigan if they stayed committed to the air raid. On the only touchdown-scoring drive for Ohio State in this game, they threw the ball on essentially every down in the 2-minute drill and had great success. However, Ohio State never came back to the pass in the second half, except in third and long scenarios which resulted in poor offensive efficiency. Instead, they were determined to outmuscle Michigan through the ground game, which never got on track. When evaluating this game, it is clear that Ohio State and their play-calling beat themselves and limited one of the most explosive offenses in college football to only 10 total points. Now, I do want to credit Michigan for a tremendous performance, on the road, against a more talented Ohio State team, but Ohio State should be kicking themselves for playing right into the strengths of the former National Champions.

As for Ryan Day, this game has put him on extremely thin ice. Every year, Ohio State promotes itself as a premier college football program, but they can’t even get past their main rival even when they are the clear favorite. For the past three years, Ohio State has missed its chance to play in the college football playoffs because of their losses to Michigan during rivalry week. However, this year, Ohio State will still make the CFP because they only have two losses this season which is good enough to have them make it in this newly expanded college football playoff format. If Ryan Day, and this Buckeyes team, fail to win a playoff game, then Ohio State should absolutely fire Ryan Day in order to hold onto their current players and incoming recruiting class.