The Ohio State Buckeyes lost to the Michigan Wolverines 13-10 back on Thanksgiving and there were many questions about head coach Ryan Day’s job security after losing four straight games to Michigan. Ohio State finished with a 10-2 record during the regular season and many people wrote off the Buckeyes playoff chances after the loss to Michigan.
They decided to pick themselves up and win a national title. Day’s doubters were silenced and there were no more talks about him being on the hot seat. Entering the 2025 college football season, he will have that pressure off of him now. The Buckeyes will have a lot of talent returning despite losing a ton of players to the NFL. With Day being able to recruit a lot of talent into Columbus, Ohio, where does he rank amongst college football head coaches?
ESPN Lists Ohio State Buckeyes Head Coach Ryan Day As Second Best Head Coach In College Football
ESPN wrote an article about who are the top 10 college football coaches in the sport. To no surprise at number one, they listed Georgia Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart. After that, there was certainly a debate about who is the second-best coach is in the college football landscape.
Also, ESPN reported,
“The results showed a clear No. 1 in Georgia’s Kirby Smart, with a bit of a gap between him and our second- and third-place finishers, both of whom appeared in everyone’s top 10. The next three coaches were bunched pretty tightly, drawing a wide range of opinions from our voters, and from there things were wide open.
Below is our top 10, listed with each coach’s career record, the points they received in our survey, a statistical nugget courtesy of ESPN Research and a comment from one or two of our voters. We also asked voters to name a coach they are surprised didn’t make the top 10 and asked one voter why the top of his ballot differed dramatically from the rest.”
Different college football reporters voted on these rankings. Well, with the voting, Day was ranked second behind Smart. The Buckeyes head coach could very well be the second-ranked coach in the country. There was one of three who had Day ranked at number four and that was the lowest he was ranked. An anonymous report was asked about why he is ranked that low. They said,
“There are a couple of reasons I did not rank Day higher. I think he should be docked for having a poor record against Michigan, the most important game on the schedule every year. He is 1-4 against the Wolverines and lost last season as a prohibitive favorite. The corresponding outrage from the fan base only died down after Ohio State won the national championship. That leads me to my second point. You might be thinking the national title is reason enough to have Day ranked higher. But in any other season, that Michigan loss would have ended the Buckeyes’ season. They got a second chance only because of the newly expanded 12-team playoff. For those reasons, I have Day at No. 4. — Andrea Adelson”
Day’s record at Ohio State is 70-10. In this poll, he accounted for 97 points. Also, some other numbers to know about the Buckeyes head coach are as follows,
“Among head coaches with at least 50 FBS games under their belt, Day’s .875 winning percentage is third best all time and the best in the AP poll era (since 1936).”
There is no doubt that Ohio State is going to win a bunch of football games once again during the 2025 college football season. There will still be a question or two about Day. One of them will be can he finally beat Michigan in 2025? Four of his 10 losses in his career are against the Wolverines. Also, who is going to be his starting quarterback in 2025? The Buckeyes have a lot to look forward too and this will be a season where the fanbase will finally not call him to be fired.
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