Ryan Day exceeded everyone's expectations during Ohio State's run to a College Football Playoff national championship last season. That includes athletic director Ross Bjork.
Bjork gave the Buckeyes' head football coach a grade of exceeds expectations in his performance review of Day for the 2024-25 academic year, per records obtained by Eleven Warriors. Bjork complimented Day on the team's culture both on and off the field.
“It has been a true pleasure to work alongside Coach Day over the past year,” Bjork wrote. “Coach leads an amazing program and anchors a great culture of academic success, socially responsible young men, a championship level of performance, and provides leadership that is expected here at Ohio State.”
On the field, the Buckeyes responded to the one major blemish on Day's résumé last academic year – a 13-10 loss to Michigan – to go on the greatest run to a national championship in college football history, beating a gauntlet that included No. 1 Oregon, No. 3 Texas, No. 5 Notre Dame and No. 7 Tennessee.
In the classroom, the Buckeyes were the only FBS football program to post a perfect multi-year Academic Progress Rate score of 1,000, and they've done it each of the past two seasons. Only Harvard's football program had the same rate for 2023-24, and no other team did so in 2024-25. Ohio State's APR has never dipped below 991 under Day.
Day was rewarded with a contract extension, averaging a salary of $12.5 million per year, in February.
One of the major goals going forward in Day's performance review is learning how to structure NIL and revenue-sharing dollars to build the best roster possible. In the review, one of his goals for himself last year was to "Learn more about contract construction, salary cap construction and the future of how rosters will be built. Study NFL front office structure for help in adapting to the times."
Bjork echoed those sentiments.
"As the college football world continues to evolve, Coach and I will work together to adapt and excel around revenue share cap management, roster/position evaluation related to revenue share cap, strategic communications strategy, ability to use the Ohio State voice effectively around the major issues in college football and continue to engage with Buckeye Nation at the highest level," Bjork wrote.
"Coach is a great leader for Ohio State and we look forward to many more years to come."
