What if it’s only two years for Ryan Day leading Ohio State football?
Ohio State football knows it has a fantastic head coach in Ryan Day, but will he stay?
Day has only been the head coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes for a season, but he’s already produced incredible results leading the Big Ten powerhouse. In his first year taking over for his mentor Urban Meyer, Day went 13-1, won the Big Ten Championship with an undefeated record and made the College Football Playoff as the No. 2 overall seed.
Though the Buckeyes lost a heartbreaker to the No. 3 Clemson Tigers in the Fiesta Bowl, Ohio State finished with a No. 3 final ranking in every major poll. If we were to add his three victories as the Ohio State interim coach while Meyer was dealing with health issues in 2018, Day is 16-1 in 17 games. His only loss was his most recent game, and that was to the sport’s reigning dynasty.
Should Ohio State live up to lofty expectations, win the Big Ten again, reach the College Football Playoff and play for its first national title since 2014, what are the chances the NFL could be calling about the offensive-minded head coach of the Buckeyes? It sounds absurd, but it’s not as crazy as you’d think. Here’s why the NFL could be interested in him and Day interested the NFL.
Ryan Day has very recently coached in the NFL and he knows quarterbacks.
While people think of Day as a Meyer disciple and they would be right, they may forget who his first coaching mentor was: Chip Kelly. Yes, Day played quarterback for Kelly at the University of New Hampshire from 1998 to 2001. Kelly was the offensive coordinator during Day’s record-setting run as the New Hampshire starting quarterback.
During Kelly’s final season leading the Philadelphia Eagles in 2015, Day was the team’s quarterbacks coach. In Kelly’s disastrous one-year run with the 2016 San Francisco 49ers, Day was the quarterbacks coach in the infamous quarterback room featuring Blaine Gabbert and Colin Kaepernick. Day resurfaced back at Ohio State beginning in 2017 as Meyer’s offensive coordinator.
There will be head-coaching opportunities abound in the NFL in January, as there always are. With only five teams switching head coaches in the last cycle, we should get closer to the six-to-eight-range we’ve grown accustomed to seeing over the years. Day may have some connections to build a great staff at the NFL level, but what this comes down to is the quarterback he could have.
Why leave arguably the best college football job in the country unless you have too good of an opportunity to pass up? If Dan Quinn gets axed with the Atlanta Falcons, maybe coaching a future Pro Football Hall of Famer in Matt Ryan for a well-run organization could be enticing? However, it’s not strong enough to pull him out of Columbus, but here is how it could happen.
Let’s say the Jacksonville Jaguars are terrible. Doug Marrone and his staff gets fired. General manager Dave Caldwell is gone, too. Owner Shahid Khan knows he has one last shot to get it right to keep his team in Duval. He may speak with Day’s agent about being the next head coach of the Jaguars. Day’s quarterback may be either Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence or Ohio State’s Justin Fields.
Jacksonville is a similar sized city as Columbus. They are the biggest cities in terms of population in their respective states. However, we view Jacksonville as the No. 4 media market in Florida after Miami, Tampa and Orlando. The same thing applies to Columbus in Ohio, as it’s viewed as No. 3 behind Cleveland and Cincinnati. In a way, Jacksonville has a lot of college town vibes of Columbus.
The Jaguars are the biggest thing in town. Day could coach the next John Elway in Lawrence or he could keep coaching his star quarterback Fields, who might be the next Steve Young. One would think the next Elway or Young would be enticing enough to keep NFL football in North Florida for the foreseeable future. Day would also have a terrific backup in the free spirit Gardner Minshew.
Sure, there could be other NFL landing spots Day might have interest in. If the Carolina Panthers didn’t hire Matt Rhule away from the Baylor Bears, that would have been the other marquee destination for Day to go college to pro. Carolina is expected to be terrible like Jacksonville and will take whoever the Jaguars don’t draft at No. 1 at No. 2. That’s where Lawrence and Fields will go.
If Anthony Lynn gets whacked, coaching Justin Herbert with the Los Angeles Chargers could be fun. What if Zac Taylor goes 2-14 again leading the toothless Cincinnati Bengals? Might Day want to take his coaching talents a few miles south to coach Joe Burrow in the Queen City? See, there are plenty of options besides Jacksonville. However, Lincoln Riley is more likely to leave than him.
Though we should expect Day to stay in Columbus, the NFL may have big interest in him for 2021.
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