The burden removed from Ryan Day’s shoulders after winning a national championship was apparent after Ohio State’s first day of spring practice on Monday.
Nearly two months from removed from winning it all, the glow of championship glory still shined through Day. Although he admitted that he’s “never happy” coming out of the first day of spring practice because of all the issues that need to be cleaned up, Day had a loose demeanor during his first press conference of the spring as he expressed confidence about his 2025 team, talked about what winning a national championship did for him and his program and personally addressed multiple media members while making lighthearted comments.
“Yeah, I'm definitely more relaxed,” Day said with a laugh in response to a query on whether it feels different being Ohio State’s head coach now that he’s won a national championship. “To say I'm not is crazy. There's no question. Yeah, we're in a different place than we were a couple months ago. I mean, let's call it for what it is.”
Day went from the hot seat to the catbird seat over the course of four College Football Playoff games in December and January. A pariah in Columbus after Ohio State suffered its fourth straight loss to Michigan in November, Day established himself as one of college football’s elite coaches by leading the Buckeyes to decisive wins over Tennessee, Oregon, Texas and Notre Dame in the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff.
Read more about "The Greatest Run in College Football History," the story of Ohio State's dominant run to the national championship.
Day views that championship run as testimony that he is running Ohio State’s program the right way. While the road to winning last year’s national championship wasn’t easy, the Buckeyes ultimately prevailed in the end because they trusted the process.
“You have to trust your process and trust your culture,” Day said Monday. “And really, to me, what that last run just solidified, I think for everybody in the building, is just the culture works, the system works. How we do it, our process works. It just gave credibility to everything we're doing. And truth be told, when you're a first-time head coach and you haven’t done it before and you become the head coach at Ohio State, you typically don't get the benefit of the doubt until you win it all. Because you haven't really done it yet, it's like anything else. And so now we have the testimony moving forward. And I think for our guys, that's the most powerful thing we can do.”
Had Ohio State suffered an early loss in the CFP, Day would have entered the 2025 season with as much pressure on his shoulders as perhaps any coach in college football. Last year’s loss to Michigan remains one of Ohio State’s most humbling defeats in the history of the rivalry, and failing to achieve any of the program’s major goals with a roster as talented as Ohio State’s was last year would have been viewed as unacceptable.
Now, Day has rock-solid job security after signing a seven-year, $84.5 million contract with Ohio State in February. But he’s still working just as hard to try to lead Ohio State to more national titles.
“That doesn't change the approach,” Day said. “I’d say it was kinda like when I had the opportunity to become the head coach at Ohio State, you walk down the hall and you see Woody Hayes and (Jim) Tressel and Urban (Meyer) and (John) Cooper and Earle Bruce, and you pinch yourself. And a month later, you wake up and you're like, ‘I'm the head coach at Ohio State, man.’ It's the same thing with winning a national championship. Some days you wake up and you almost forgot you won it, ‘cause life just moves on. It just does. And it's on to the next challenge, it's on to the next group of guys.”
Above all else, Day says his goal as Ohio State’s coach is to improve the lives of his players and help them achieve their dreams. That will never change, Day said, and he knows winning is the first step to making that happen.
“Winning just gives you an opportunity to continue to have an impact on young people's lives,” Day said. “And that's why you get into coaching, period. And if you're not, then you're in it for the wrong reasons. And so that's it. And the staff, when I talk to guys and hire them and bring them in here, that should be the number one goal. Bring in young people, help them reach their dreams and goals, in the game of football and in life. Winning just allows you to do that, ‘cause if you don't win them, they're gonna find somebody else. That's just the truth. And I share that with the coaches all the time. But no, it's great to have a certain level of testimony and credibility to the work that we put in around here.”
“The culture works, the system works. How we do it, our process works. It just gave credibility to everything we're doing.”– Ryan Day on what the national championship run showed him
Ohio State’s pride in winning the national championship is on full display at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center this spring. Four new banners hang over Ohio State’s practice field – one that simply reads “National Champions 2024,” and three CFP banners commemorating Ohio State’s wins over Oregon in the Rose Bowl, Texas in the Cotton Bowl and Notre Dame in the national championship game. Ohio State’s newest national championship trophy is now displayed prominently inside the trophy lobby at the front entrance of the WHAC.
Several other pieces of national championship memorabilia that were on display around the facility, however, have actually been taken down at the request of Ohio State’s player leaders. As the Buckeyes begin preparing for what they hope will be another national championship season, they know that they must start the process all over again and put in just as much work as they did a year ago for a chance to win it all again.
“The leaders of this group decided that they wanted to take some of the stuff down, some of the national championship things down in the facility, because they realized, ‘We didn't win a national championship, last year's team did,’” Day said. “And that was a good start, because that's the right mentality to have, is that we gotta start this thing from scratch and build from there.”
