Breaking down the stakes for Ryan Day without Jim Harbaugh on the sideline

There’s a lot riding on Saturday’s game against Michigan for Ohio State coach Ryan Day. The Buckeyes enter the matchup having dropped the past two contests against the Wolverines, and Day desperately needs to avoid making it three in a row.

Since taking over as the Ohio State head coach in 2019, Day has a 1-2 record against Michigan. The past two losses caused the Buckeyes to miss out on an opportunity to play for a Big Ten Championship, as well as missing the College Football in 2021.

The winner of this year’s game will also move on to play Iowa in the conference title. With Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh serving a suspension, Day has the perfect opportunity to get back on the right side of things.

“Ryan Day has lost six games in his career,” Letterman Row‘s Spencer Holbrook told On3‘s Andy Staples. “Two of them are to Michigan and that’s just not good enough. That’s what this is. That’s why I think it’s the best in all of sports. Even Nick Saban loses to Auburn sometimes and people are like, ‘OK, he wins a national championship.’ Ohio State almost won a national championship despite losing to Michigan last year and people still would’ve questioned Ryan Day because he didn’t beat Michigan for the second straight year. You can’t lose three straight. That hasn’t happened in the last 30 years in this rivalry for Ohio State. …So Ohio State is definitely playing for Ryan Day.

“The ‘Free Harbaugh’ stuff, it is what it is. Those guys can manufacture a lot. Kirby Smart tells his team they’re gonna go 7-5 every year and nobody believes that. If you wanna tell yourself that Jim Harbaugh’s done nothing wrong, that’s completely fine. You can manufacture your own motivation. But Ohio State has that and they don’t have to manufacture anything.”

Day’s track record at Ohio State has been impressive so far. He’s won two Big Ten Championship and made the College Football Playoff three times all while amassing a a 56-6 record. Not to mention he has wins in the Sugar Bowl and Rose Bowl.

At most programs, that success alone would be enough to satiate the fan base. Ohio State, however, isn’t most place. Buckeyes fans want to see their team beat Michigan, as well as compete for national titles.

If Day is unable to do that without Harbaugh, the issue becomes much larger.

“Then the pressure gets ratcheted up,” Holbrook explained. “He doesn’t have a Jim Harbaugh problem, he has a Michigan problem. I think there’s a big difference because Jim Harbaugh clearly had an Urban Meyer problem. We’ve seen that he can beat Ohio State. He can do it against Ohio State. He can get the job done, build a program the way he wants to and beat the Buckeyes. But he couldn’t do it against Urban Meyer. Right now, I think Ryan Day a little bit with two straight has a Jim Harbaugh issue.

If he loses Saturday, then you’ve got a Michigan problem. Gene Smith is the departing athletic director who’s gonna retire at the end of this year. He doesn’t wanna go out with a three-game losing streak to Michigan. This is as important to him as it is to anybody. All of those factors have the pressure squarely on Ohio State, but this is also a team that has already won five games on the road. This program only plays six road games once every 70 years and they’re playing six road games this year. They call themselves ‘road warriors.’ Everything seems to be lining up for this team to go do something special, now they just have to go do it. That’s gonna be easier said than done because of how good Michigan is.”

Ohio State and Michigan rank as the top two defenses in the country, so Ryan Day will have a lot to prepare for ahead of this contest. All signs point to an evenly matched contest, which would be nice after the Buckeyes lost 45-23 this past season.

Ohio State’s offense appears to have found a rhythm over the past couple of weeks, with quarterback Kyle McCord looking much better. Day knows how important this game is for both him and the program, and isn’t taking things lightly at all.

“The way Ryan Day talks about the rivalry, he respects it by preparing for it,” Holbrook said. “He respects it by working for it. He respects it by doing the things that you’re supposed to do to win every game. That kind of turns a few people off, especially because he’s a New Hampshire native. He’s not an Ohio guy. Ryan Day just goes about it as he understands the magnitude. He understands the stakes.

Last year I think he even made too big of a deal of it and you saw the results of what happened when he poured every single ounce of intensity into it. Each coach has a different way of doing it, but he did learn under Urban Meyer. So he brings some of those traits into the game.”

Kickoff between Michigan and Ohio State is set for noon ET on Saturday in Ann Arbor.