COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork said he is “absolutely” confident Ryan Day will be back in 2025 to continue his leadership of the football Buckeyes.
Calls to fire the sixth-year head coach rose within the fan base after his team closed its regular season with a 13-10 home loss to Michigan on Nov. 30, the fourth straight year Ohio State has lost to its Big Ten border rival. Bjork, during an interview Thursday on 97.1 FM “The Fan” in Columbus, said Day is the man for the job — regardless of how the Buckeyes perform in the upcoming College Football Playoff.
Ohio State (10-2), seeded eighth, hosts Southeastern Conference member Tennessee (10-2), the No. 9 seed, in a first-round game on Dec. 21.
“Coach Day is awesome,” said Bjork, who came from Texas A&M — an SEC program — to replace the retiring Gene Smith last summer. “He’s great to work with. He totally gets it. He loves being a Buckeye. So we’re going to support him at the highest level.”
The loss to Michigan, followed by an ugly on-field melee between the frustrated Buckeyes and the celebrating Wolverines, put the Ohio State coach in a precarious spot. Day and his team were booed off the field by the home fans, and Bjork ended up releasing a statement expressing his support for the coach.
“The reason we had to say something after (the Michigan) game is we’re still breathing, we’re still alive,” Bjork said of the Buckeyes still being in contention for the CFP even without playing in the Big Ten title game. “The season’s not over. The book is not closed.”
AP file photo by Sam Craft / Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork has expressed his confidence in Ryan Day, the sixth-year head coach of the Buckeyes football program, multiple times since the team closed the regular season with its fourth straight loss to Big Ten border rival Michigan.Thanks to the first 12-team edition of the playoff, Day has a chance to redeem himself with Ohio State’s huge fan base with a win against the Volunteers — and perhaps more. Regardless of what happens, Bjork said, Day will be back next year.
“Coach Day and I just hit it off so well,” Bjork said. “I’ve been really, really impressed. Every single time I talked to him, I learn something. He’s innovative. He recruits at the highest level. He’s got a great staff.”
Day wouldn’t directly address his job status last weekend.
“When you first come off those types of things, there’s a lot of emotion,” he said, referring to the latest loss to Michigan, which continued its streak despite a 7-5 record this year that is far from last season’s 15-0 run to the national championship.
“And then as time goes on, you’ve got to get refocused,” Day continued, “because you know what you’ve done in the past does not affect what’s going on moving forward. Everything is out in front of us.”
Failing to consistently beat Michigan is one of the few flaws in Day’s coaching record. Hired as a member of coach Urban Meyer’s staff in 2017, the quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator was the hand-picked successor when Meyer retired after the 2018 season. Having compiled a 66-10 record in charge of the Buckeyes, he is widely admired in the coaching community.
“Great respect for what he’s done in his coaching career, what he’s done there at Ohio State and the success that they’ve had year in and year out,” Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said.
Day, 45, is in trouble now because losing “The Game” is considered an unforgivable sin by Buckeyes fans. It’s hard to imagine a fifth loss in a row to the Wolverines next year being followed by a similar vote of confidence from Ohio State leadership, but Bjork is trying to keep things in perspective for now.
“What we have to do is this whole ‘championship or bust’ mentality, you want that as the goal, but it has to be about the process,” Bjork said. “To me, we’ve got to maybe change some conversations a little bit. I think we need to maybe just approach things a little bit differently.”