Ryan Day Discusses Ohio State’s National Championship Run, Team’s Resilience and Postgame Golf Cart Crash on Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon

By Dan Hope on January 28, 2025 at 1:02 am
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Ryan Day continued to praise his team’s resilience during his appearance on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

When Fallon asked Day about Ohio State’s journey from losing to Michigan to winning the national championship, Day said he believes the story of the 2024 Buckeyes is how they never stopped believing in their ability to win it all despite their stunning loss in The Game.

“I think there's so many people that can learn from this team,” Day said. “We have an unbelievable group of guys that decided to come back and forgo going to the NFL. And there was a point at the end of the year where there's nobody who thought we were going to do this. And there's a group of guys that did, decided they were going to, and they started with a home game against Tennessee. We got some momentum going there. We went out to L.A. in the Rose Bowl and played No. 1 Oregon and won that game. And then we went to the Cotton Bowl, and one of the most iconic games in Ohio State history, just an unbelievable play by Jack Sawyer with a sack-fumble at the end of the game to win, and then to finish with a national championship trophy. But there was a point there where a lot of people doubted us, and the resilience of these guys to come back and win and finish, I think there's a lot of life lessons to be learned there.
 
“We get caught up in all these things,” Day said pointing at the national championship trophy sitting next to him, “but really at the end of the day, it's about the lessons these guys are learning. And then for people to watch this team overcome, to me, that's the story of this team.”

Day made his late-night talk show debut just one day after Ohio State held its national championship celebration inside Ohio Stadium, which is when Day it really sunk in for him that the Buckeyes had won it all.

“We had over 45,000 fans there, and that's really when it sunk in, because just the hard work and the journey that we went on to get there,” Day said. “This is the first time we've had the 12-team format of the playoffs, so 16 games, and there was ups and downs along the way, but our guys showed resilience, and so to hoist that trophy with everybody there meant a lot.”

Day’s jubilation about winning it all was apparent from the moment the national championship game ended, though, as Day fired his headset into the air before being doused with green Gatorade as the Buckeyes finished off their 34-23 victory over Notre Dame. Day explained what came over him in that moment when Fallon showed that moment to his audience on Monday night’s show.

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“When you're at the end of the game, you know you're so close, you want to see it end,” Day said. “And then all of a sudden, when you realize you’ve won, it's like, ‘Get this headset off of me’ and I threw it. I'm lucky I didn't hit somebody in the crowd, because there's weight on that, too. And then I turned around, and I forgot about the Gatorade bath, because you're not thinking about any of those things. I was surprised with it, and it was a great feeling.”

The headset throw wasn‘t the only postgame moment that Fallon and Day joked about as the Tonight Show host also played the clip of the infamous golf cart crash that took place while Day, quarterback Will Howard and linebacker Cody Simon were on their way to the postgame press conference after the national championship game. Both Fallon and Day joked that it was reminiscent to the famous Austin Powers scene where the movie character struggled to turn a golf cart around inside a narrow hallway.

“You're stressed during the game and you finally take a deep breath, we get on the golf cart to go to the press conference and we are just gunning it through the field, I mean, just dodging around people, and I'm grabbing on like this,” Day said, gesturing as though he was grabbing the sides of the cart, “and then we took the corner and hit the wall. And if you look back, like, Will Howard's laughing his tail off and so is Cody Simon, and I'm looking like, ‘You've got to be kidding me right now.’ It's just amazing how you come right back down to earth, like, 20 minutes after that.”

Fallon also asked Day if it would be possible for famous Ohio State fan LeBron James to join the Ohio State football team, which prompted Day to joke that the 21-time NBA All-Star wouldn’t receive any “special treatment” if he became a Buckeye.

“LeBron is a huge fan of Ohio State and has been a great supporter, but that being said, he'd be right in line with the freshmen in the back of the room,” Day said. “He'd have to work his way up.”

The interview concluded with Fallon asking Day to make his Super Bowl prediction. Day picked the Philadelphia Eagles to beat the Kansas City Chiefs, citing the presence of Fallon’s Philadelphia-native house band The Roots as well as the roots of Howard, a native of the Philadelphia suburb of Downingtown, Pennsylvania.

“My brain tells me the Chiefs, but I'm sitting here right now in front of the Roots, and our quarterback is from Philly, Will Howard, so I'm going with the Eagles,” Day said.

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