Ryan Day’s Disastrous Decision Dooms Ohio State

Decision making for Ohio State should be reviewed during the offseason. Ryan Day’s decision to remove the offense coordinator from calling plays and making him the play caller is what cost Ohio State the Cotton Bowl to Miami. This also led to an early exit in the College Football Playoff. This decision was based on the fact that the offense coordinator was leaving the school after the playoffs to be head coach of South Florida.  As a result of this, Day decided to punish the offense coordinator by removing him from playcalling duties.

Ohio State had a system throughout the season that the players followed that led to a 12-1 record. Having a seismic change to the system such as removing the offense coordinator from play calling duties forced the player to get used to this new system on a short period of time and led to nothing but trouble for the team. As a result, for Ohio State, Julian Sayin’s offense struggled to protect the quarterback and, despite some improvement in the second half, could never quite find the tempo during the Cotton Bowl. The offensive woes and Matt Patricia’s defense struggling during a big game (something that Patriots and Lions fans know all too well) cost Ohio State from winning a game against the 10th rank team in the Playoff.  Losing two out of three of the most important games for Ohio State this season (Win vs Michigan, Lost the Big Ten Championship and the Cotton Bowl) in a school that has high football standards may have evaporated any goodwill Day had with the school since winning the College Football Playoff National Championship last season.