Jim Knowles defends Ryan Day from critics, shares anecdote on outside noise

Ohio State Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day has needed to endure outside noise from critics, particularly after losing to Michigan for a fourth straight time. Amid all of that, the team and staff around him have had his back, though, including defensive coordinator Jim Knowles.

Now, with the Buckeyes preparing to play in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game, Knowles defended day from those critics publicly and shared an anecdote about dealing with pressure coming from outside the program.

“I’m happy for our coach,” Jim Knowles said. “He really is a great head coach. He’s involved in all aspects. He’s in touch with the players. He knows your problems. He knows your struggles. Whatever was going on there, I don’t get to pay attention to it because I’m involved in my own world, but thanks for telling me people abuse me too. I didn’t know.”

Jim Knowles, for his part, played at Cornell and later became the head coach there. Since then, he has worked his way up the FBS as a coordinator and has been at Ohio State since 2022. He’s also not immune to criticism himself.

“I tell that story, I remember because I’ve got teammates in town, college teammates,” Knowles said. “One of them owns a restaurant. One of them is a big lawyer. In the beginning, they’d say, ‘Hey, don’t worry about what everyone’s saying about you.’ It’s like, I didn’t know they were saying that about me! Thanks for telling me, though.”

The Ohio State program is one of the most successful in college football, having gone 69-10 under Ryan Day and since Jim Tressel took over in 2001, the Buckeyes have only had three seasons where they didn’t win at least 10 games, not including the 2020 season. That success leads to criticism when Ohio State fails to win a championship and, as Knowles explained, Day takes to brunt of that criticism for everyone else.

“But, in terms of our head coach, there’s not a person in this building, no matter what your job is or anybody who knows him, we all know he would do anything for the team or the players. He works extremely hard. He doesn’t let anything from the outside world affect us. He’s very protective of our job and the players and making sure we have it the best that it can be. Yes, I’m very happy for him. He deserves it. He deserves all the recognition and the support from anyone,” Knowles said.

“Anyone who is a fan of this program, if you saw inside how Coach Day works, the feeling the players have for him, how consistent and supportive. And then look at the players. I mean, we have really good kids, really good kids, and they’re still young men. So, how the players operate in the community and all the good things that happen and the negative things that don’t happen, the kind of discipline and selflessness we have in the program – that’s all a function of Coach Day’s effort and what he puts into it.”

Now, Ryan Day has a chance to win his first national championship as the head coach at Ohio State. In his way is one final game against Notre Dame on Monday, January 20th.