Despite painful losses in the last two games, the 2023 Ohio State football team was still largely a recognizable version of what Buckeye teams are supposed to look like, but the similarities are increasingly fading. With each year under Ryan Day’s direction, it feels like the program is running out a Xeroxed copy of a Xeroxed copy of a Xeroxed copy of the type of team that we all know Ohio State is capable of; you can tell what it’s supposed to be, but it’s getting harder and harder to make out the specifics.
With each passing season, it feels like the Buckeyes are getting further away from the crystal-clear vision of a program that prides itself on creativity, development, and aggression. With each new disappointing campaign, things are getting progressively cloudy around the edges so that it won’t be long before the product on the field no longer even resembles the best Buckeye teams of the recent past.
Day has one more shot to fix the shortcomings of his program, or his time in Columbus will be up. He’s not going to be fired before the 2024 season; Athletic Director Gene Smith is retiring in June and he’s not going to replace the most important employee in the athletic department before the new AD takes over — especially when Smith and Day are such close friends.
So, with the possibility of Day being fired off the table, there absolutely needs to be substantive and substantial changes made to the program immediately; like before the end of January for some, and before the end of December for others.
If he chooses to sit pat and not undertake any significant restructuring heading into the 2024 season, then in my opinion, Day does not understand or deserve the job as Ohio State’s head football coach. In the last three to four years, he has allowed an increasingly rapid erosion of many of the gains built up by Jim Tressell and Urban Meyer over the previous two decades, effectively returning the program to where it was under mid-tenure John Cooper.
Friday night’s performance by Day and his team (primarily the offense) was an embarrassment to the standard that the OSU program has set in the 21st Century, and while there are many programs that would be thrilled by an 11-2 season, Ohio State simply should not be one of them, especially when those losses come in the final two games of the season against teams that the Buckeyes should be able to beat.
Day might not be in danger of losing his job in the coming days or weeks, but his seat should be approaching Dante-levels of heat in 2024, and he needs to approach every decision as if it could be the one to make or break his job, or whoever replaces Smith behind the AD’s desk is going to be dialing up Mike Vrable, Lance Leipold, Kalen DeBoer, and many other potential replacements in 12 months’ time.
The last decade of Ohio State football has been marred by ebbs and flows of coaching staff nepotism that has, at times, had disastrous results. From Urban Meyer hiring his best man to coach linebackers even though he was wildly unqualified to Ryan Day hiring Meyer’s son-in-law (who played wide receiver in a triple-option offense) to be his quarterbacks coach.
Now, I don’t want to disparage the guys on the current staff who Meyer brought in, because they have all contributed significantly to the success of the Ohio State program since arriving in Columbus and I am grateful and truly thank them for their service. However, their individual and collective effectiveness has waned in recent years, and while some of them are still doing above-average jobs, I think it is time for Day to bring in new voices, new ideas, and new perspectives to position groups that have become seemingly stagnant.
I’ll start with the afore-referenced Corey Dennis, Meyer’s son-in-law who theoretically coaches the Buckeye quarterbacks. Now, let’s be honest, Dennis coaches the Buckeyes backup quarterbacks, because Day coaches the starter (which is another problem). The lack of progression and preparation that we saw from Kyle McCord, Devin Brown, and Lincoln Kienholz shows that Dennis is not really doing that much. With two years backing up C.J. Stroud, if Dennis was up to the task required of his job, McCord would have been better prepared to start this season. The same is true for Brown and Kienholz to a lesser degree, because they haven’t been in Columbus as long, but they should have been more prepared when given opportunities having spent considerable time under Dennis’ tutelage.
Now, I admit that recruits and their families really seem to love Dennis, so again, I think that he has done a decent job as the QB coach, but I don’t think he’s done enough to keep his job with the flames so quickly engulfing quarterback room at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.
Dennis’ contract expires at the end of January, and I think that Day should put in as many calls as he has to find Dennis a soft place to land, because he shouldn’t be offering him a contract to return to the OSU staff. In my opinion, Day needs to find a veteran, experienced QB coach to come in and completely take over that room, and potentially one with play-calling experience (more on this later).
In my opinion, Day is far too involved in the intricate machinations of the offense. Of course, he should be involved in the game-planning and positional coaching, and should have veto power over every play call, but I’ve been writing for over two years that Day needs to embrace being Ohio State Football’s CEO and give up play calling, and I think that also applies to being the lead coach when it comes to the team’s starting quarterback as well.
Then there’s running back coach Tony Alford. I really like Tony. He seems like a legitimately good dude and his have had some major highlights over the years, including TreVeyon Henderson, but it seems like they are increasingly missing out on major talents and his commits have a nasty habit of flipping to Miami in the final weeks before Signing Day.
There has also been a concerning lack of vision from his players in recent seasons. This might have more to do with Day’s degrading play-calling abilities or the lack of consistent run blocking by the offensive line, but for the bulk of the last two seasons, OSU running backs have struggled to find and hit the proper holes. Henderson seemingly got back into that rhythm as his health improved later this year, but even healthy, most of the other backs still struggled.
So, while I would wish him well and root for him wherever Alford ended up next, I think Day needs to bring in a new running backs coach for 2024.
Another guy who I believe has significantly contributed to the inconsistent running game is longtime strength and conditioning coach Mickey Marotti. Under Meyer, Coach Mick was practically the 1a mascot of the program behind only Brutus Buckeye, but with conversations about toughness and injuries dominating much of the last three seasons, I believe that there are serious questions to be had about what is happening with the Strength and Conditioning program.
Now, I do not have a degree in kinesiology — hell, I can’t even spell kinesiology without spellcheck — but it seems that if a team continually gets beat in the trenches, especially when they have size and athleticism advantages, that would indicate that there is something wrong with their strength, speed, and agility; all of which falls under the purview of Marotti.
The Buckeyes have been beaten on both the offensive and defensive lines far too many times in recent years for a team that recruits as well as Ohio State does. While that can’t all be attributed to Marrotti, some of it has to be, especially when the team also seems to have been suffering through a rash of injuries that never seem to go away.
Maybe it’s just me, or maybe players are just being more conscientious about what their bodies are telling them, but it feels like over the last three to four seasons, OSU players aren’t coming back from injuries like we are being led to believe they should. Far too often guys who get hurt, stay hurt.
That could just be a coincidence, but to my non-medically trained eye, it seems like even seemingly mild ligament and soft-tissue injuries turn into debilitating problems more often than not, including some that we have been told would be just a few weeks that have stretched into season-ending ailments.
Is that because of Marotti’s program? I don’t know, but I think that it is probably time for a change anyway. Day needs to find a strength and conditioning coach who can incorporate the most modern techniques, philosophies, and treatments. As college football changes, Ohio State needs to move away from the idea that once a player arrives on campus, he needs to immediately add 25-30 pounds of muscle, regardless of position.
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