Ohio State’s Ryan Day will sink or swim with Justin Fields

Ohio State head coach Ryan Day has his quarterback for 2019, but taking over for one of college football’s most successful coaches of this generation, the pressure is already on.

Urban Meyer’s left behind a storied legacy at Ohio State, whether positive or negative in his seven seasons. It resulted in a National Championship and closed with a Rose Bowl victory, despite not making the College Football Playoff.

Taking Meyer’s place is the man who replaced him, Ryan Day, in the season-opening suspension for mishandling the situation around former assistant coach Zack Smith. It’s not a prominent name like Meyer was in 2011, taking Jim Tressel’s role, but someone with experience in college and the NFL.

There’s plenty to appreciate about Day’s resume. His 2017 offense was seventh in the country and second in 2018, becoming the sole offensive coordinator. No matter which quarterback started, the veteran coach’s schemes were catered to the talent and contributed to a combined 15-3 record. Then, as a quarterbacks coach for the Philadelphia Eagles, he assisted in arguably Sam Bradford’s second-best season of an injury-prone career.

Day’s last four jobs have involved handling the quarterback position, including as the offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach in 2018. The full team is in his hands but, like any football team, the signal caller holds the cards towards success. The incumbents, Dwayne Haskins and Tate Martell, are gone, but Justin Fields is here.

Day will strap at least his next two years of coaching to Fields, the former top recruit that left Georgia after Jake Fromm’s stronghold on the quarterback position and a racist comment from a Bulldog baseball player.

Fields has the inside track to succeed in this high-percentage offense, as Bleacher Report noted. The offense is catered to quick decisions that don’t force mid-play reads like an NFL system. Haskins succeeded as a pocket passer and had two years to grasp it, while his likely replacement profiles as a dual threat that has yet to prove his arm and will ride a learning curve.

It’s risky for a first-year head coach to put his eggs into the basket of a player who, while heralded, has minimal experience. If he fails, it’s on Day, at a program that expects double-digit wins and National Championship contention every season, while staying ahead of Big Ten rival Michigan.

There are concerns with inserting a player like this as the Buckeyes’ quarterback and leader, especially as Day, a first-time head coach, must show results to pick up where Meyer left off. The new man in charge himself said Haskins would not have been ready to become the full-time starter in 2017, as a sophomore in the offensive scheme, according to 247Sports. Fields won’t have anything beyond spring and summer practices to understand it.

"“Yes, yes,” Day said. “It doesn’t just happen. What happened last year with Dwayne Haskins is an anomaly. Someone to step in 14 games, projected to be maybe the first quarterback taken in the draft, third in the Heisman. That just doesn’t happen. Someone doesn’t just step in and do that."

Day has Matthew Baldwin, a four-star player in 2018, but he sat his freshman season, and it’s difficult to know if this pro-style quarterback can challenge Fields when spring practice starts.

Plus, for someone as lauded as the Buckeyes’ incoming player who left Georgia to become a starter, figure that he will handle the duties in Columbus, so Day can only hope his prized transfer learns this offense in record time, for his sake.

Ohio State will return J.K. Dobbins in the backfield, taking pressure off Fields and potentially making this a run-oriented offense — how it was before Haskins replaced J.T. Barrett. That lets the new face settle in, but doesn’t mean expectations will be low for the former No. 2 overall recruit in 2018.

If Fields flops, sure, Baldwin can have his chance, but that also means a desperate return to the recruiting ranks to find the next quarterback if Plan B also doesn’t impress. If that player needs time to learn, it puts Day into a quandary: what can he do to keep an offense that finished in the top 10 the past two years afloat?

With or without an answer, Day is looking at pressure to make his tenure successful. It’s living up to expectations of a school that lost four games in a season just four times since the turn of the millennium:

• 2000 (8-4): John Cooper’s final season.
• 2001 (7-5): Jim Tressel’s first season.
• 2004 (8-4): Troy Smith emerges halfway through the season.
• 2011 (6-7): Program turmoil amid Tressel’s departure.

In the 15 other seasons, Ohio State has just one season of three losses.

Eliminating the outlier year of Tressel’s departure, this program has bordered perfect for 20 years, and with three National Championship game appearances. So, yes, there is already heat on Day.

It starts with the player that touches the football on each offensive snap, however. Buckeye fans watched Haskins lead them through 2018, with the exception of that season-changing Purdue loss. Before that was Barrett’s inspiring play. Even for a glimpse, it was Cardale Jones in 2014, who rose to Heisman-like play in a crunch to shock the college football world.

Fields may never captain Day to a title, but he must lead him towards 10-win seasons, Big Ten championships and flirt with the College Football Playoff to secure the 38-year old’s job in a high-stakes opportunity.

21 other players take the field for Ohio State, so it’s not just Fields. As football offenses become wide open though, quarterback play must complement this with greatness. That’s what’s needed to compete in the Big Ten and maintain positioning in the always chaotic field atop the College Football Playoff Rankings.

The clock is ticking on a young and promising head coach that will lead a historic program. The talent is there, but will the results follow?