Ryan Day and the Ohio State Buckeyes came closer than any team in college football to beating eventual national champion Georgia in 2022. But amid speculation that Day faces significant pressure to win it all in 2023, Greg McElroy has decided to address the situation.
Appearing on ESPN’s Always College Football, McElroy said that Day’s seat should be getting cooler – not warmer – after how his team played against Georgia in the Peach Bowl. He believes that despite losing, Ohio State proved that they were national championship material by making Georgia look beatable for the only time all season.
“I think he earned a lot of goodwill with the performance against Georgia,” McElroy said, via Saturday Tradition. “It’s Ohio State. We’re not going to get into the business of giving out moral victories if you’re the Buckeyes. Stop. We’re not doing that. They were tough. They were physical in that game. They were up to the challenge in that game. They had a tremendous game plan. They gave Georgia all they wanted, think about it, who played Georgia better than Ohio State. Georgia didn’t play well. Why didn’t they play well? Because Ohio State gave them all they wanted.”
Those are kind words coming from McElroy, but they may not be enough to save Day from the torches and pitchforks if the Buckeyes’ 2023 season isn’t better.
Prior to 2021, beating arch-rival Michigan in The Game was becoming as much of a schoolwide tradition as tailgating. But in back-to-back years they’ve now lost back-to-back against the Wolverines – and this year’s loss at home was the most egregious of them all.
Ohio State wound up backing into the College Football Playoff at 11-1 but still had a chance to be the first team to take down Georgia all year. Instead, they fell short at the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve.
For some programs, the outcome is more important than the minutiae of what led to it.
That isn’t to say that Ryan Day will lose his job without winning a national title next year, but legitimate concerns will certainly start to arise.