CFB > NFL. I think there is at least a slight concern among the Buckeye faithful that Ryan Day will bolt to the NFL as soon as he has a prime chance (more specifically, whenever Bill Belichick croaks or decides to hang it up).
It's a legit fear, and one that I've expressed privately on multiple occasions. But the problem with that theory is Day already turned down an NFL offensive coordinator job – which likely would have led to an NFL head coaching job shortly after – to stay at Ohio State.
The reason is, he wants to be here. He wants to coach an elite college football team. That's always been the plan, and his stint in the NFL was to help him achieve that goal.
From Doug Lesmerises of
Cleveland.com:
“At the end of the day, there were times I would go home,” Day said of his previous stops as a football assistant, “and I’d feel like I’d be working a million hours and I’d have nothing to show for it. You’d be working as hard as you could possibly work, but at the end of the day, you come home to your wife and kids and you’re like, ‘What do I have to show for this?’
“Here, you’re relevant. Here, you have something to show for it. Here, it makes sense. You’re working a million hours and you’re on the road recruiting and you’re doing all these things, but at the end of the day, you’re competing for a championship. You’re competing for a Big Ten Championship, you’re in the Rose Bowl, you’re taking your family to the Cotton Bowl.
“These are the things I’ll never forget.”
...
Day looked at his two NFL seasons as pursuing his football PhD.
“You spend your whole time on football, where you just don’t have that time in college,” Day said. “When I went to the NFL, I said, ‘I’m going to spend my whole time until I’m out of the NFL studying quarterback play and the pro passing game. I’m going to study that and that’s what I did. When I got done with my experience there, I was ready to go coach anywhere in the country and have great conversations with the best minds in football about quarterback play and the passing game.”
The whole article is a great read from Doug. It talks about Day coaches college athletes differently than professional athletes, goes a little deeper into the reasons the Day family chose Ohio State over the NFL, and talks about R.J. Day's relationship with the Ohio State quarterbacks.
The more I read and hear about Day, the more positive I am Ohio State just replaced an absolute coaching legend with a legitimate coaching prodigy, and Michigan fans are going to be inching closer to the ledge when they figure that out.
They waited 10 years for Jim Tressel's departure, and then got Urban Meyer instead. They waited seven years for him to leave, and now the Buckeyes have a spry 40-year-old who by all accounts seems to be a beautiful combination of the two guys that just went a combined 16-1 against them.
But at least they saw South Africa!
https://www.elevenwarriors.com/skul...lasXosswfZAXMrgX_SYTOVH5irowIg_Yz_uJbjnyyfFnE
