COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio State coach Ryan Day on Tuesday did something in his first season that neither Jim Tressel nor Urban Meyer accomplished in their national championship careers.
Day broke one of the more perplexing streaks in the Big Ten Conference by winning half of a split vote for the Big Ten Conference’s Coach of the Year.
Day earned the vote of media by guiding the Buckeyes to a 12-0 record and third consecutive Big Ten East Division championship. The coaches voted for Minnesota’s P.J. Fleck, who took a more conventional route to the award by surpassing his program’s modest outside expectations.
Day became the first Buckeyes coach recognized with the award by either media or coaches since Earl Bruce in 1979. Ohio State has won or shared 15 Big Ten championships in 40 years since, including three undefeated conference runs. Yet neither John Cooper nor Tressel nor Meyer were recognized with hardware.
Looking backwards from early December, one sees an Ohio State team whose defense flattened all opponents and whose multi-faceted offense leads the nation in scoring.
Looking ahead in early August, however, the future seemed much murkier. The Buckeyes were bringing back most of their worst defense from the past 50 years. Multiple offensive line spots were unproven and unsettled. Would Justin Fields settle in quickly as a front-line quarterback? Would Day rise to the challenge of leading the program, not just coaching on an interim bases with Meyer’s presence nearby?
Throw in the mid-season suspension of Chase Young, Ohio State’s best player and the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year for two games. Throw in the potential distraction of the College Football Playoff chase. The Buckeyes thrived through all of the above.
Co-defensive coordinator Jeff Hafley unsurprisingly backed Day for the award earlier Tuesday, but for reasons largely unfamiliar to those who would have been voting.
“The way these players play for him, the way these players care about him — take out the record,” Hafley said. "The way he treats these players and this staff and the way these players play for him and the way these coaches coach for him, and then combine that with the record?
“I don’t think there’s a better coach in the country. You can debate me on that, but that’s how I feel.”
The end result was a season as dominant as those produced by those other renowned coaches. Yet in order for it to lead to hardware, it had to unfold from the expectation that the Buckeyes might only be really good this season — a step short of championship level and hovering closer to ordinary.
Based on precedent, this may have been Day’s only shot to break the streak. Outside expectations of Ohio State have returned to their customary level.
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