Ryan Day wants to see improvements made to the player experience for College Football Playoff games.
Ohio State was one of the first teams in college football, along with Notre Dame, to experience traveling to three CFP games in a row as the Buckeyes played Oregon in the Rose Bowl, Texas in the Cotton Bowl and the Fighting Irish in the national championship game. And while Ohio State navigated that path better than anyone else, winning all three of those games along with a first-round home game vs. Tennessee to win the first 12-team CFP, Day believes the CFP and its bowl games can do a better job of providing the best possible experience for players.
While going to bowl games used to mean participating in a week’s worth of events before playing the game, that’s no longer the case for teams in the CFP as they keep their focus on trying to win a national championship. And Day thinks the CFP and its respective bowls can help teams perform at their best by making adjustments to the accommodations they provide for the teams.
“The experience is something we’ve really got to learn from. You know, I think that the player experience can be much better,” Day said in an appearance on “The Triple Option” podcast. “I think that the focus needs to be on the players. And I think we need to look at a lot of it.
“The national championship is not run by a bowl. The other ones are, but even the ones that are run by a bowl, as you guys remember, there used to be events. There was a lot that came with that. Now that's no longer the case. It's just like being on a road game except you're there a day earlier, but there's no events, like nobody going on any events, nobody's leaving the hotel. I think that we need to consider moving the hotels outside of these big cities, because we're not going to these events anymore, so I think being a little bit more secluded and looking at some of those locations is just better for everybody, especially for the players again. And I think that we need to pour into the players.
“These are the guys that are doing the work. So I think that we need the best food there is that can possibly be served to these guys. I think it should be the best conditions. I think we should try to find as many mementos for these guys that possibly can be done, just little things that money can't buy, but it stays with them forever.”
Urban Meyer, who co-hosts The Triple Option with Mark Ingram and Rob Stone, praised Day – who was Meyer’s offensive coordinator in his final two seasons as Ohio State’s head coach – for his efforts to advocate for the players. Meyer did the same during the first four-team College Football Playoff – which Ohio State also won – calling for the CFP to help pay for players’ families to attend playoff games, which it ultimately did in response to Meyer’s advocacy.
“They're getting paid now, so it's a little bit different, but back in the day, I got so pissed off,” Meyer recalled. “And so we play Alabama (in the 2014 CFP semifinals) and I remember I'm walking up to the podium and I'm thinking about the majority of families can't afford to go to a Big Ten championship game, to a playoff game, a national championship game, they can't afford that. Yet I'm seeing the assistant AD to the assistant AD to the assistant AD, the assistant to the conference commissioner – you know the point I'm getting to, right? All these people, and I'm looking at my boys over there, and their freaking parents and uncle or sister can't go to the game. And I walked up on the podium and for 10 minutes, they kept asking questions, I said, ‘No, we've got to change this.’ And they did.
“But I think that's a great point, and I think that's your job. I'm not preaching to you, but you got to push that, man,” Meyer said to Day. “It's got to be reasonable, but the player and their family has got to be number one, and then let's kind of start filling in the blanks after that.”
Day indicated that improving the player experience in the CFP will be something he continues to advocate for this offseason.
“I felt like while we were going through it, once the dust settled, that situations like this was an opportunity for me to speak up and to say that, no, I think we need to do better,” Day said. “And over the next few months, for those who went through the different games, I think the way that we've historically done it, it's great, it's fine. But we need to really do a better job, because like (Meyer) said, the most important people here are the players. And I think it's easy sometimes, unless someone's advocating for them, to forget about that. And they deserve the best of the best. And so, yeah, to your point, we got to make sure we're constantly ringing that bell.”
More drastic changes could be coming to the CFP in 2026 as Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger reported Sunday that the Big Ten and SEC – who are meeting Wednesday in New Orleans – are considering a proposal to expand the CFP again to either 14 or 16 teams with both the Big Ten and SEC receiving four guaranteed berths starting in 2026. While Day did not address that proposal on the podcast, which was recorded last week although it was published Wednesday, he said he thinks the CFP should reconsider how the playoff bracket is seeded, specifically the current format of only giving top-four seeds and first-round byes to conference champions.
“I think it was clear this year that the automatic byes were a little out of whack,” Day said. “When you see kind of how it all shook out, I think they need to rethink that. I understand why in the first year it was done that way. But I think that if you win your conference, sure, you should get in. Then you get a bye, I think that's a little much.”
