Ryan Day’s Unlikely Path To One Of The Greatest Jobs In Coaching
INDIANAPOLIS, IN – DECEMBER 02: Urban Meyer the head coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes holds the winner’s trophy after 27-21 win over the Wisconsin Badgers in the Big Ten Championship at Lucas Oil Stadium on December 2, 2017 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
It looks like Urban Meyer is done at Ohio State for failure to report one of his longtime assistants was a wife abuser.
As soon as the school announced it would be placing Meyer on administrative leave (code for, “let’s park you to the side administratively until we figure out a way to end your employment”) the athletic department named assistant Ryan Day as the Buckeye’s acting head coach.
On yesterday’s radio show we speculated, prior to the announcement, who’d be the acting head coach at OSU. Naturally, we started with the coordinators on both sides of the ball. Many suggested co-defensive coordinator Greg Schiano would be a good fit since he has college and pro head coaching experience. Schiano would have been a stupidly clumsy choice. Just this past offseason Schiano saw Tennessee offer him their head coaching job, only to rescind it hours later due to public outcry because of his ties to Penn State and the possibility he may not have reported everything he knew about pedophile Jerry Sandusky. Can you imagine OSU dumping Meyer for failure to report domestic abuse and replace him with somebody attached, rightly or wrongly, to a pedophile case?
OSU’s other defensive coordinator is Alex Grinch but he just joined the program this spring. Meyer’s co-offensive coordinators are Kevin Wilson and Ryan Day. Kevin Wilson resigned as the head coach at Indiana University in 2015 after being accused of mistreating players. Scratch him off the list.
On a side note, the longest tenured coach on the staff is defensive line coach Larry Johnson. He has no head coaching experience and, again, he has ties to Penn State.
So let’s return to Ryan Day. Meyer had to give him an extension this offseason for 3 years at $1,000,000 a year. Pretty pricey for a young assistant. However, the move was necessary because Day almost bolted for the Mississippi State job last year. The Titans also offered him the OC job this past year.
So there it is. The story about how Kevin Day became the coach of the mighty Ohio State Buckeyes days before the start of a new season.
Written by Craig Shemon
