Ohio State’s dream Ryan Day replacement may not be in cards after all

Believe it or not, Ryan Day is as close to a hot seat as a coach with a 56-8 record can be.

Ohio State's head coach is coming off three-straight 11-win seasons, but what do 11 wins mean if none of them came against Michigan? The three-game losing streak to the bitter rivals has the pressure on Day. He'll be judged on two things in 2024: Can he win The Game and can he lead the Buckeyes to a national championship? Finishing the season without those two boxes checked is failure.

So, the subject of a replacement for Day isn't out of bounds, especially when someone as desirable as Mike Vrabel, an Ohio State alum, is out there looking for a job.

Vrabel was fired by the Titans after posting a losing record in his sixth season. No new jobs materialized, so he joined the Browns as a consultant for the coming NFL season. That means he'd be an obvious target for the Buckeyes if they decided to take the bold step of moving on from Day.

At least, that's what a lot of Ohio State fans hope would be the case.

Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated says otherwise...

Ohio State's Mike Vrabel dream likely to remain out of reach

"My sense is that Mike Vrabel’s focus would be on landing another NFL job, rather than going back to the increasingly messy college level," Breer wrote in his mailbag after a reader asked how long until Vrabel would take over in Columbus. "There are few coaches out of work (maybe just one, that being the guy with six rings) who are more qualified than Vrabel, and I think a good year on the staff in Cleveland would set him up to have options next year."

Breer also referenced Michigan getting "aggressive' with Jim Harbaugh to bring the alum back to Ann Arbor, which is certainly something Ohio State could do to turn Vrabel's head. The problem is they'd be competing with desirable NFL jobs that will certainly be on the table.

Mike McCarthy with the Cowboys, Dennis Allen with the Saints, Matt Eberflus with the Bears, Brian Daboll with the Giants, Robert Saleh with the Jets, Nick Sirianni with the Eagles and Sean McDermott with the Bills could all find themselves out of a job by the end of the 2024 season if things don't go well for them. Each of those jobs have something major to recommend them. It would be hard to say no if any of those are out there.

This all presumes Ohio State has an open job in the first place. It's just as likely Vrabel doesn't even have the Buckeyes job on the table because Day simply wins too many games to get canned. Sure, losing to Michigan for the fourth year in a row would erode even more of the faith he's lost among the fanbase, but it's a tough call to fire a coach who's winning 10+ games a pop.

The Mike Vrabel pipe dream won't go away, but it's still very much a dream.