Ohio State football: Why pressure is on Ryan Day to win Big Ten after massive transfer portal haul

If I told you that a college football head coach with a 58-8 record was on the hot seat, would you believe me? In this day and age in the sport, that’s a little tougher to answer. But when you then reveal that said coach is Ohio State football head coach Ryan Day, that might not be as surprising.

Outside of the COVID-impacted season, in which the Buckeyes only lost one game, that being the national championship to Alabama, they’ve won eleven or more games every season under Day, giving him an overall .875 winning percentage. There isn’t a program in the country that wouldn’t be begging for that right now.

However, in college football, parity is void, equal opportunity is not present, and standards from program to program are nowhere near the same. For instance, just before fellow Big Ten team Northwestern fired Pat Fitzgerald from allegations due to a hazing scandal, the former head coach had only eight winning seasons in his 17 years, with only three of those being 10 wins.

Or what about former Georgia head coach Mark Richt, who went 145-51 in 15 years in Athens before he was fired. Or, let’s bring it a little bit closer to home with the Buckeyes in their arch-rival Michigan, who just won their first national championship since 1997, that took head coach Jim Harbaugh nine years to accomplish.

Day won’t make it nine years without a national title at Ohio State. He won’t make it another season without a win over Michigan.

Day will be entering Year 6 as a full-time head coach for Ohio State football come this fall. But the pressure has been building on him the past couple of seasons, all because of The Game. That’s right, one game every season is the benchmark for Ohio State that determines if a season should be deemed successful or not. That’s how much value a win over Michigan is to the Ohio State faithful and the people in and around the program. That’s what makes the Ohio State job completely unique compared to any of the other jobs in the country.

Three straight losses to Michigan — his only Big Ten losses to date — has firmly put Day on the hot seat. But his lopsided loss to Alabama in the College Football Playoff national championship in 2020 did him no favors either. Perhaps with the accomplishment of at least one title, beating the winningest program and head coach in the last 20 years would have cooled the fires a bit. But then again, winning is such an expectation at Ohio State that nothing else can subdue the pressure it puts on the program or its head coaches. It’s win or find a new job. Which is why Day has gone all in on 2024.

Ryan Day goes all-in for Ohio State football in 2024, beefs up roster

The 2024 college football season will be a completely new era in the sport, one of which no one quite knows how it will shake out. There will be bigger, albeit less, conferences and more playoff-viable teams with the CFP moving from a four to a 12-team field.

One of those bigger conferences is the Big Ten, which will be adding four new teams in USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington that all made up the highly contested Pac-12 in its final season. The Buckeyes only have to face one of those new teams next season (Oregon), unless they were to face them in the Big Ten title game. Nonetheless, the competition is greater, but no one truly knows what the margin for error is going to be. That’s why Day set out to bulk up his roster and even improve his staff.

Whether through the transfer portal or NFL Draft, Day and Ohio State football were losing some key pieces that made up their 2023 team, such as wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr., defensive tackle Michael Hall Jr., and quarterback Kyle McCord and wide receiver Julian Fleming. But as much as the portal takes, the portal has given.

In January, Day and Ohio State added former Kansas State quarterback Will Howard, former Alabama five-star quarterback Julian Sayin, Ole Miss running back Quinshon Judkins, former Alabama center Seth McLaughlin, and former Alabama safety Caleb Downs.

That’s a hefty haul for one team. But as impressive as it is, it all reeks of desperation.

Ryan Day and Ohio State football face defining 2024 season

No one will fault any coach for loading up in attempts to either beef up or rebuild their team entirely through the transfer portal. That’s where we are at in college football currently. Better yet, no one can even say any longer that it’s not about paying players because that’s exactly what it’s about — it’s just that it’s now legal.