For all the criticism his tenure at Ohio State has attracted, Ryan Day leaves Monday’s 34-23 National Championship Game win over Notre Dame as part of a special club with Paul Brown, Woody Hayes, Jim Tressel, and Urban Meyer as one of the Buckeyes. title-winning head coaches.
Not bad company, considering Brown is a Pro Football Hall of Famer. Tressel and Hayes were each inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, and Meyer will surely join them at some point.
And Day is now on a team of national championship-winning coaches, alongside one Lou Holtz.
The day’s championship, which comes at the expense of a Notre Dame program that last won a major under Holtz in 1988, seems especially fitting. Among the most memorable moments of Day’s time with the Buckeyes before Monday came in September 2023, when, following a 17-14 victory over Ohio State, Day called out Holtz in a postgame interview.
Holtz made the comments before Ohio State’s visit to Notre Dame Stadium, dismissing the Buckeyes’ ability to dominate teams from teams with comparable talent levels. Day, taking the criticism seriously, fired back when Ohio State won with a goal-line touchdown—an understandable response.
But Holtz’s criticism was misplaced at the time — and it wouldn’t have been applicable just two months after Ohio State’s 13-10 loss at Michigan to close the regular season.
Likewise, the opening of the National Championship Game sounded like a standard play script. Notre Dame’s first possession consumed nearly the first 10 minutes of the game, including two successful fourth-down conversions and culminating in Riley Leonard’s goal-line fumble.
Eighteen games. Seventy-five meters. Notre Dame’s offensive line is pushing Ohio State’s defense back on its heels like no other playoff opponent has before. That first drive could have vindicated all criticism of Day’s Ohio State teams as falling behind in a physical battle—if not the Buckeyes returned fire and then some.
The Fighting Irish may have prevented the championship game from turning into a farce after Ohio State jumped out to a 28-7 lead early in the second half. Leonard gave an inspired effort with his season-best passing and team-best 40 yards rushing.
After the first drive, however, Notre Dame was never again the victim. The Buckeyes’ run defense held an opponent that averaged over 210 yards per game to just 53 yards.
Seven turnovers, spread among six Buckeyes, contributed to the quick reward.
Ohio State’s offensive line also accounted for itself, opening up holes for the ball carriers to amass 214 rushing yards—78 more yards than Notre Dame had previously allowed per game—1.6 more yards per carry than the Fighting Irish allowed. previously.
Ohio State’s dominance in the trenches was constant throughout its playoff run. The Buckeyes ran for four touchdowns against a Tennessee defense that had allowed nine rushing touchdowns in their previous 12 games combined.
Oregon looked completely overwhelmed on both lines in the Rose Bowl Game, and the Buckeyes’ defensive front seven showed up in the high-pressure area of ​​the Cotton Bowl, capping off a win over Texas.
Those previous three plays are what made Notre Dame’s first drive so surprising—but also symbolized Ohio State’s ability to turn it around, Day noted in his postgame press conference.
He said: “That first campaign went down to the field. “We responded in a big way, we never moved. And… when you think about the run we’ve had here in the playoffs, a big part of it [it is] the way we responded at the end of the season.”
Ohio State’s championship season wasn’t perfect. In fact, the 2024 Buckeyes are now the only two-time national champion since the Associated Press stopped giving out its title before bowl games in 1968.
“Now it’s the best story,” Day said of Ohio State cashing in on an extended playoff run to make the change. “Always in the back of my mind, I felt that the people of Ohio and the entire Buckeye Nation, after going through tough times and seeing the team and coaching staff go through tough times, to accomplish their goal would mean even more.”