Let’s Have The Hard Conversation, Ohio State Fans: Why Doesn’t Ryan Day Win Big Games?
Alright, I’m ready to talk about it. I’ve been eating Peeps nonstop for the last two days, sulking in a combination of sugar, sugar, and misery. But now I have a flight to New York for the ALCS streams between the Guardians and the Yankees, and I’ve finally got a few minutes to address the elephant in the room. Everyone on the internet has now seen the stat that Ryan Day is now 1-7 vs Top 5 teams. And I hate to give this Michigan account any publicity, but yikes, the rest of it doesn't look too healthy either....
And listen, a lot of people have bad records against Top 5 teams. And a lot of people struggle against the SEC. And a lot of people aren’t a million and zero against cupcakes. But a lot of people also don’t have teams with Justin Fields. Or CJ Stroud. Or Marvin Harrison Jr. Or Chase Young. Or $10+ MILLION DOLLARS worth of NIL transfers like Caleb Downs, Quinshon Judkins, Will Howard, etc etc etc. So why, with all of this talent (quite literally the best roster money can buy), do we still lose every time we have a big game? Folks, I think Ryan Day is a good guy and he says the right things and I do think he’s a good coach, but how many times do I have to write those words after losses in big games? At some point, when you have every single resource imaginable at your disposal, you have to win the big one. Probability would say we should win over half or at least half of the time, but 1-7?
This tweet hurt:
Like I always say, the truth hurts! But now where do we go from here? I’ll tell you where we don’t go. We don’t go “light a fire under our asses” like Will Howard said.
I hate that so much. I’m not sure what he’s supposed to say in that moment, and he probably didn’t mean anything by it, but what it tells me is they didn’t have a fire lit under their asses coming into the game. And now it begs the question: how many losses against Michigan in a row does it take for Ohio State to start playing with fire under their ass? And don't tell me this loss was different. Don't justify why it was okay. Don't make excuses for why we made mental mistake after mental mistake after mental mistake. I see it in our fanbase already. The season isn’t over! We only lost by 1 at Oregon! We’d beat them on a neutral field! We’ll see them again in the Big Ten Title! We’ll still make the playoff! We can still win the National Title! — Yes, every single one of those things are all true. But we had the better team on Saturday night and we pissed it away. And we've had the better team at the end of November at least two out of the last three years, and we pissed it away then too. And we pissed away a lead against Georgia in the title game. And after seeing this complete body of work for many years now, there's one common denominator every time. The guy born on 3rd still hasn't fucking scored.
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I want Urban back. (And if this guy loses to Michigan, or honestly, doesn't make a National Championship game this year, I think we'll have to make that call)