The past three weeks have left no doubt about the sense of urgency Ryan Day feels for Ohio State to get back to achieving its major goals in 2024.
Between the power moves Ohio State has made in the transfer portal and the changes Day has made to the Buckeyes’ coaching staff, he’s sent a clear message that the status quo from the past few years isn’t good enough.
Since Ohio State’s 2023 season ended with back-to-back losses – a third straight defeat to Michigan and a 14-3 loss to Missouri in the Cotton Bowl – the Buckeyes have been as aggressive as they’ve ever been before in terms of pursuing transfer talent.
The Buckeyes could have entered 2024 with a quarterback trio of Devin Brown, Lincoln Kienholz, and Air Noland and probably found a good enough starter between them. Instead, Day brought in potential upgrades for the present and the future, adding experienced former Kansas State quarterback Will Howard as Ohio State’s likely 2024 starter and Alabama transfer Julian Sayin, the top-ranked quarterback in the 2024 recruiting class, as a likely starter for 2025 and beyond.
Ohio State needed to add depth at running back, but it didn’t necessarily need another star at running back with TreVeyon Henderson returning for his senior season. It got one anyway, bringing in former Ole Miss running back Quinshon Judkins – a first-team All-SEC honoree in both of his first two collegiate seasons – to pair with Henderson and form the nation’s best running back tandem.
The Buckeyes already had a loaded defense, but that didn’t stop them from pulling out all the stops to land former Alabama safety Caleb Downs, beating out Georgia to bring the No. 1 player to enter the transfer portal this offseason to Columbus.
Ohio State also added likely starters at tight end (Will Kacmarek) and center (Seth McLaughlin) via the transfer portal.
The Buckeyes should still be looking to add another offensive lineman or two to compete for starting jobs, even if that means having to re-up those efforts in the post-spring transfer window. Otherwise, they’ve made the necessary personnel moves – both through transfer additions and retention of draft-eligible starters – to build a championship-caliber roster for the 2024 season, even if that comes at the expense of more prominent roles for some of its intriguing young players.
Day has also made efforts to improve Ohio State’s coaching in all three phases of the game with the staff changes he’s executed this month.
It came as a surprise when Ohio State opted not to retain safeties coach Perry Eliano after having the nation’s No. 1 pass defense in 2023. Still, it made a statement that Day is looking for improvement wherever he can find it. Given that new safeties coach Matt Guerrieri has already helped Ohio State land Downs – a player Eliano didn’t close the deal with as a high school recruit – that change seems to already be paying dividends, at least on the recruiting trail.
The firing of special teams coordinator Parker Fleming was a more obvious decision, but nonetheless, one that Day actually made this year after opting not to make it a year ago despite notable special teams miscues in 2022.
The decision to hire a new offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach fell somewhere in between those two, as Day could have justified continuing to call the offensive plays and keeping Corey Dennis in the quarterbacks coach position based on the success of their previous Ohio State offenses and quarterbacks before last season. Instead, Day brought in a former NFL head coach to take over both roles with the hiring of Bill O’Brien.
The past three weeks have left no doubt about the sense of urgency Ryan Day feels for Ohio State to get back to achieving its major goals in 2024.
Ohio State still has one vacancy to fill its coaching staff for 2024, and the trio of new assistant coaches will have to prove that Day made the right choice by hiring them. But Day voluntarily making three coaching changes after an 11-2 season shows Day was serious about evaluating everything after the year’s disappointing finish.
Day had said in December that he thought Ohio State could “have the best roster in the country” in 2024 and that he would make whatever changes were necessary to give Ohio State the best chance to win games. Now, he’s backed up those words with louder speaking actions – probably more loudly than even he could have anticipated at the time, as there was no expectation that Downs or Sayin would enter the transfer portal before Nick Saban retired.
After Ohio State failed to achieve any of its major goals of beating Michigan, winning the Big Ten championship and winning the national championship in all of the last three seasons, 2024 could be a make-or-break year for Day’s future as Ohio State’s head coach. With a new athletic director coming in later this year – one that fired Jimbo Fisher with eight years remaining on a fully guaranteed contract at Texas A&M – it becomes all the more important for Day to achieve at least one of those goals this season.
The moves Day and Ohio State have made over the past three weeks should bolster the Buckeyes’ chances of achieving all three of those goals in a season that Ohio State will now enter with clear championship expectations.
At a minimum, Ohio State’s active start to the offseason makes it clear that Day won’t go down without a fight.
