CBS Sports calls Ohio State’s Ryan Day a ‘loser’ in 2023 college football season
You hate to see it. Wait, no you don’t.
Despite all of the chatter in Columbus the past few years about how Michigan football was talking big, but that retribution was coming to the premier college football rivalry, it hasn’t happened yet.
Ohio State dominated the rivalry for nearly two decades, but in the COVID-19 year of 2020, Ryan Day’s mouth wrote a check his team couldn’t cash. He told his team he hoped the Big Ten had a mercy rule because the Buckeyes would hang 100 on Michigan football. The teams didn’t play due to the Wolverines being decimated by COVID-19 that year. Michigan canceled the Maryland game the week previous and the Iowa game the week after.
When the two teams returned to the field in 2021, the maize and blue surprised the scarlet and gray, 42-27.
The next year, at a Skull Session in Columbus, then-wide receivers coach (and current offensive coordinator) Brian Hartline spoke of how his team had been working in silence and assured everyone that Michigan would succumb in The Horseshoe. A 45-23 final later, it wasn’t to be.
So, this year, many in the Buckeye State were confident the rivalry would rightfully shift back to OSU. It came as a surprise when Michigan won, 30-24.
As a result of this year’s regular-season finale, mixed with Ryan Day’s odd outburst following his team’s win at Notre Dame, CBS Sports’ Shehan Jeyarajah picked Day as one of his losers in his season-ending winners and losers column.
Ohio State coach Ryan Day: An emotional postgame tirade directed at Lou Holtz was a defining moment Day’s 2023 season. Following a tough, physical win over Notre Dame, Day challenged any notion (and, with Holtz by name, any person claiming) that his team was soft. But for the third straight year against rival Michigan, Day couldn’t muscle the win he needed most. The last time Ohio State lost three straight games against Michigan was 1997. Following the season, Ohio State lost starting quarterback Kyle McCord to the transfer portal. Receivers Marvin Harrison Jr. and Emeka Egbuka, as well as running backs TreVeyon Henderson and Miyan Williams, are NFL-caliber players, so their futures are uncertain. The Buckeyes are starting over on offense, which is the last thing Day needs as he enters the new era of the Big Ten on the hot seat.
It will be interesting to see how Ohio State fares this offseason. There’s no indication Day is in danger of losing his job this year, but he ran off quarterback Kyle McCord with no evident replacement in sight, and though there are still a great many high-level recruits coming in, there appears to be a lack of experienced playmakers left on next year’s roster.
The same may be said of Michigan next year, but several key players have not made a public decision on whether they’re staying or departing for the NFL. If J.J. McCarthy and Donovan Edwards come back, it could give the Wolverines a leg up in 2024 in Columbus.
