Welcome to the Skull Session.
The first Ohio State preseason practice was a movie.
Day 1️⃣ in the pic.twitter.com/igLHjaM9uH
— Ohio State Football (@OhioStateFB) August 6, 2026
Have a good Friday.
“NOW WE GOT TO GO PLAY.” Ryan Day woke up Thursday with some extra pep in his step. The first day of preseason camp will probably always do that — even if college football looks a lot different now than it did when he played at New Hampshire in the late 1990s.
“I remember back when I played, you showed up with your box fan, and you met your roommate for the first time, and camp started the next day,” Day said. “Either you show up — well, you had a conditioning test before, we used to have conditioning tests, so you either made conditioning tests or you came back every morning until you made conditioning tests. It’s just nothing like that anymore. There’s just such a lead-up with the workouts and everything that we do.”
Day sees that change as a positive.
“Anytime you put the helmets on, anytime you start going against each other, it’s completely different,” he said. “And we got a chance yesterday to get together, talk about our goals, talk about the vision for the team, talk about our identity, talk about where we want to go. It kind of gives us a focus on football.”
That’s where Ohio State needs to take the next step, Day said. The eighth-year head coach believes the Buckeyes look as athletic and talented as ever, but talent alone won’t win championships. Ohio State still has a long way to go before it can call itself one of college football’s best teams — the type of team capable of winning a Big Ten title and national championship.
“I think physically we look as good as we have. I think we have the talent, but now we gotta go play,” Day said.
YOU WATCHING, KIRBY? Quick, someone send this video to Kirby Smart:
On today’s show, Ryan Day. We asked him about what he drives and it opened a very good discussion about today’s college football. pic.twitter.com/xHRvDaFohk
— Ari Wasserman (@AriWasserman) August 6, 2026
In an interview with On3's Andy Staples and Ari Wasserman on Thursday, Day revealed that he drives a Mercedes-AMG capable of burning rubber on SR-315 on his way to campus. He bought the vehicle, in part, to show his players that it takes discipline and self-control to properly steward money and other resources.
“Quite honestly, this is the truth: I bought it, and I drive it not even so much that I like it, but because it can go really fast,” Day said. “But I tell the guys one of the things we have to understand — and one of the biggest issues we have right now with young people — is driving really fast. I tell them, I have an AMG. I could floor that thing and rip down the highway, but I don’t. And that’s discipline. So I do it almost as a reminder so that the guys know that I have a car that drives fast, too, but I can’t drive fast.”
Maybe that’s the message Smart needs to send to his players after more than 25 Georgia football players have been cited or arrested for speeding or reckless driving in recent years. Worth a shot, at least.
Back to the video: I laughed when Wasserman pressed Day on whether he’s ever taken the car out to country roads or a racetrack and really opened it up.
“Have you ever gone somewhere rural or to a track and really let it rip, or am I getting you in trouble here?” Wasserman asked.
“No comment,” Day replied.
Well played, coach.
A BRAND-NEW ARCHIE GRIFFIN FIELD. This week, Columbus City Schools approved spending $2.5 million to renovate Eastmoor Academy's football stadium, home to Archie Griffin Field, where Ohio State legend and college football's only two-time Heisman Trophy winner Archie Griffin starred in high school.
At a CCS board meeting on Tuesday, members approved plans to demolish and fully replace the stadium's aging home and visitor grandstands.
"We’ve heard loud and clear that the aging stadium is no longer safe, and it is time to build a new home and visitor grandstand that is worthy of these loyal fans and the legacy of Archie Griffin," CCS superintendent Angela Chapman said in a statement, via The Columbus Dispatch's Cole Behrens. "This is an investment in our student athletes, our school families and the entire neighborhood, giving them a safe, welcoming facility that matches the pride of the Warrior community.”
Engineering assessments found significant concrete deterioration, noncompliant guardrails and other structural issues throughout the 1955 stadium. A 2024 district facilities assessment ranked Eastmoor's stadium as the athletic facility in the worst condition across Columbus City Schools, making it one of the district's highest priorities for improvement.
Demolition is expected to begin in September and conclude in November, with the new grandstands targeted for completion by August 2027, pending final approvals.
Griffin played at Eastmoor from 1968-72. As a senior, he rushed for 1,787 yards and 29 touchdowns while leading the Warriors to a Columbus City League championship, including a 267-yard performance in the title game against Linden-McKinley.
In 1996, Eastmoor inducted Griffin into its Athletics Hall of Fame and renamed its playing surface Archie Griffin Field. Soon, the stadium surrounding it will finally match the legacy of the name of the grounds.
HE SAID WHAT NOW? After Indiana hired Curt Cignetti as its head football coach three years ago, he fired up a crowd at an IU basketball game by declaring, “I’ve never taken a back seat to anybody, and I don’t plan on starting now. Purdue sucks and so does Michigan and Ohio State.”
New Purdue athletic director Tommy McClelland took a page from Cignetti's playbook during his introductory press conference.
“We are here to win championships,” he said. “If you don’t want to win championships, go to Indiana.”
NEW: Purdue AD Tommy McClelland in his introductory press conference:
— On3 (@On3) August 6, 2026
"We are here to win championships. If you don't want to win championships, go to Indiana."
(via @BigTenNetwork)https://t.co/pwjsY4Axo9 pic.twitter.com/nqIYR1ks8Q
Um. Did anyone tell him Indiana just won a national championship? In football, no less.
I admire McClelland’s confidence. The former Rice athletic director also said it’s “time to raise the bar on what is possible” at Purdue, and I agree. The Boilermakers are a Power Four program with every opportunity to compete at the highest level. The only problem is that Indiana is the school that just proved anyone can do it. McClelland probably should have kept that one in the holster before taking his first shot at the Hoosiers.
SONG OF THE DAY. "You're Still The One" - Shania Twain, the No. 1 song during Ryan Day's freshman year at New Hampshire in 1998.
CUT TO THE CHASE. Rubber ducks by the thousands splash into Chicago River for annual Special Olympics fundraiser... New images of the sun show its surface in the finest detail yet... This McDonald’s cheeseburger and Coke combo is breaking the internet... The rise of the $100 hot dog... which reminds me of what the Costco founder once said to the company's CEO.
