"And the rain came down, the streams rose, the winds blew and beat against the house. Yet it did not fall because it had a foundation on the rock."
Regardless of what one believes, for a team with so many Christians, it's fitting that Ryan Day chose one of Jesus' parables in the Bible to emphasize his team's foundation and practice habits throughout the year. The above quote is from Day in a new video released by Ohio State on Wednesday, recapping his team's brick-laying practice tradition in 2024 and how it paid off with a national championship. It's a near-verbatim reference to Matthew 7:24-27, a parable about two men, one who built his house on sand and one who built it on rock.
— Ohio State Football (@OhioStateFB) January 29, 2025
The Foundation of the 2024 National Champion Ohio State Buckeyes pic.twitter.com/SaOiCmuPv3
The video starts by taking viewers back to Aug. 2, when Day first introduced the brick-by-brick concept to his team. Starting in preseason camp, after each practice, a Buckeye was awarded a brick to lay neatly in their growing well-formed pile of them constantly left outside to brave the elements in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.
"How do you build the house? First thing is, you have to work in the offseason," Day said. "The summer. The spring, right? You've got to work in the winter. The big games are coming and the big storms are coming. So we've got to build this foundation."
Storms certainly swept in for the 2024 Buckeyes, who lost to Oregon and Michigan before going on the greatest College Football Playoff run ever in the first 12-team playoff. There were storms in those four CFP games, too. But after Ohio State claimed college football's ultimate crown, Day was able to reflect with his team on the payoff of all the bricks they laid.
"We said along the way we were going to build a foundation," Day told his team in the locker room after the title win. "And every single brick that was put in had to withstand a storm along the way. We didn't know what storms they were going to be. But we had to withstand storms. And the only reason that we were able to withstand the storms that came is because of the foundation, the people in this room right here."
Day then pulled out one last brick, painted gold unlike the others.
"Guess who gets this brick," Day asked his team, then shouted, "Me."
Everyone cheered.
