There is no access to the alternate reality where Ohio State beats Michigan to close its 2024 regular season.
All other circumstances being equal in that timeline, do the Buckeyes still win a national championship? What happens in the Big Ten Championship rematch with Oregon that would have followed? Those are questions that can never be definitively answered. What can be answered, I’d say definitively, is that it sparked a great evolution in Ryan Day as a head coach.
His offense pounding its head into the brick walls known as Michigan defensive tackles Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant, two top-15 picks in the 2025 NFL draft, drove an important lesson through Day’s skull that he understood but failed to fully embrace in several key moments of his Ohio State tenure: It doesn’t matter how you win, only that you win.
That’s a massive credit to Day. College football is a game where you adapt or die. And in the fateful team meeting after the Buckeyes fell at home as three-score favorites to the Wolverines, he listened to voices like that of veteran then-Ohio State defensive end Mitchell Melton, and has gone from a great coach to one of the best in the sport because of it, as recounted in Bill Rabinowitz’s book on the title run, Buckeye Brotherhood.
Melton wasn’t kidding. Day repeatedly emphasized Ohio State’s need to win the rushing battle despite employing the services of school single-season completion percentage record-holder Will Howard and a trio of future first-round NFL draft picks at wide receiver in Jeremiah Smith, Emeka Egbuka and Carnell Tate.
“That's how you control the game on both sides of the ball,” Day said of the running game during the week of The Game last season. “So that's something that has to be done. And you just look historically, that's how you win The Game. That's not the only thing. There's a lot that comes with it. And so, like every game we go into, we'll work hard to do what we think best helps us win the game. But, yeah, the team who runs the ball and the team who stops the run is going to win the game.”
That insistence led Ohio State to run the ball 26 times for just 77 yards against the Wolverines, 3 yards per carry. It didn’t help that Howard was likely concussed. But more than the general reliance on the running game – the Buckeyes still passed more, 33 times, though two-minute drills at the end of each half account for plenty of those attempts – it was an insistence on runs up the middle that weren’t working. It felt like a statement Day (or offensive coordinator Chip Kelly) wanted to make against the classic toughness narratives, whether that fed into the play calling or not.
But in the College Football Playoff, things changed. The Buckeyes aired the ball out. They threw to run the ball when needed. The offense sputtered a bit against Texas, yes, but Day and Kelly unleashed Howard to the tune of a CFP title game record 13 straight completions to open the game, and Ohio State hoisted a CFP national championship trophy above its head. They did what they felt was best to win the game, despite the bad blood Day had with former Notre Dame head coach Lou Holtz and his former accusations that Day’s program wasn’t tough.
But the 2025 season has made it clear that the lessons of the CFP run were internalized and built upon.
Day and new defensive coordinator Matt Patricia were the first men to recognize that this year’s Ohio State defense had generational potential. Riding into the most hyped season-opener in program history against then-No. 1 Texas, there was an expectation that the Buckeyes might rely on their perimeter weapons of Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate.
Instead, Day adopted a methodical approach centered on running the ball, trusting his defense to win the game in a 14-7 slog. He did what he thought was best to win, regardless of any statement that could have been made, and that was to limit the amount that he put on the plate of first-time starting quarterback Julian Sayin.
“The No. 1 goal is to just win,” Day said in his Tuesday press conference following that game. “If it’s 14-7, we have to be really, really excited about that. I think, in college football before there was the playoff system, but even still now at a place like Ohio State, there’s certain things – quote-unquote “look test” and style points, which is a pretty dangerous place to go sometimes. Because the No. 1 goal is to win.”
Ohio State’s first road test at Washington saw Day roll with a similar strategy. The offense proved efficient, scoring on four of its six drives (excluding when the Buckeyes ran out the clock at the end of the game), but the Buckeyes held the ball for more than 20 minutes in the second half against quarterback Demond Williams Jr. and the dangerous Huskies offense.
But the latest full-circle moment of Day putting statements or ego aside and coming up with his objective best game plan came at Wisconsin last Saturday.
Through the Texas and Washington games and especially since, Sayin has established himself as one of the best quarterbacks in the country. He’s dominating the country in completion percentage at 80%, with 1,872 passing yards and 19 touchdowns against just three interceptions. The training wheels came off. Day and offensive coordinator Brian Hartline put tons of decisions in his lap with a litany of RPO plays.
“The No. 1 goal is to just win.”– Ryan Day
The Buckeyes slung the pill, calling 44 passes against 24 runs. Now that his signal-caller has hit his stride, Day is no longer obsessed with winning rushing battles – not that he doesn’t want Ohio State to be effective running the ball.
Day’s true test of whether he’s evolved beyond worrying about statements or proving toughness will arrive in Ann Arbor on Nov. 29 when the Buckeyes attempt to break their four-game losing streak in college football’s greatest rivalry.
