Coaching the Ohio State football program carries a tremendous amount of pressure. The Buckeyes are known for excellence, and Ryan Day finally overcame the hump last season after leading Ohio State to a national championship win. Ryan Day replaced a legend in Urban Meyer, and he still has had trouble beating Michigan. Despite the title win, that pressure is not going away.
ESPN senior writer Jake Trotter wrote a story about Ryan Day's pressure at Ohio State since he took over as head coach from Urban Meyer in 2019. Trotter specifically talked about the toll that losing to Michigan has taken on Ryan Day. That game is all that matters to Ohio State fans, and after the Buckeyes lost to Michigan for a fourth straight game, his family faced death threats.
“Fans were yelling at his wife in stores, his kids were getting messed with at school,” said 2024 Buckeyes captain Jack Sawyer, who's now a defensive end for the Pittsburgh Steelers. “The things that he and his family had to go through were just absurd — it's just insanity.”
Every year, the Ohio State football program has three goals: to beat Michigan, win the Big Ten, and win the national championship.
The 2024 Buckeyes were loaded and faced a struggling Michigan team, but the Wolverines still shocked the Buckeyes in Columbus, which led to Ohio State students chanting, “F— Ryan Day.”
Armed guards had to be stationed at the Day home, as they had been after past Michigan losses. Day's wife, Nina, also received threatening text messages and calls on her phone from random people.
The loss was a massive blow, but it forced the Buckeyes to come together and unite more than they had during the previous season. The team met after the Michigan game in a massive meeting that featured only Day and the players. It was a big meeting for everyone to get on the same page and move forward toward their ultimate goal of winning a national title.
“It got real in there,” said then-quarterback Will Howard, also with the Steelers. “But it made us closer — and turned us into a different animal when the playoffs came.”
A switch was flipped for the Buckeyes, and they started annihilating teams. They beat Tennessee 42-17 and Oregon 41-21 without breaking much of a sweat. Then, they needed heroics from Jack Sawyer to beat Texas 28-14, and they beat Notre Dame 34-23 in the national title game.
Everyone saw that he needed to get that monkey off his back, and this led to others taking note, like Kirk Herbstreit, who said this has been a lot, but it's incredible to see him finally reach the top of the mountain.
