Ryan Day addresses Bill O'Brien's candidacy for Boston College job

Ohio State hired Bill O’Brien as their new offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach on January 19 after he served in the same role for the New England Patriots during the 2023 football season. But following the departure of Boston College head coach Jeff Hafley to the NFL, the Boston native’s name has now been connected to the Eagles head coaching job.

O’Brein has jumped back and forth between the college and NFL ranks throughout his coaching career, but has not been a head coach at either level since being fired from the Houston Texans head coaching job in 2020 in the midst of his seventh season with the franchise.

On Wednesday, Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day was asked if he could confirm that O’Brein was in fact a candidate for Boston College’s during his press conference.

“No real updates there,” Day said. “He’s working today and we’ll kind of see how it goes”

Day was asked a follow up question regarding if O’Brien was present and in the building as well, with it appearing as if O’Brien was scheduled to speak with media on Wednesday too.

“He’s here today, yeah,” Day replied.

Hafley spent four seasons as Boston College’s head coach before deciding to accept to job to become the next defensive coordinator for the Green Bay Packers this offseason. He previously spent one season on the Buckeyes’ staff as the co-defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach in 2019 before becoming the Eagles head coach. And with that in mind, Day was also asked if he’s joked with Hafley about potentially negatively effecting him twice now in recent history.

“God dang,” Day laughed and said. “Yeah it was not good, but I spoke to Jeff and happy for him that he’s got a new challenge ahead of him. But yeah, that was a curveball we were not expecting, we were expecting a fastball and got a curveball.”

O’Brien spent two seasons as the head coach at Penn State prior to his tenure with the Houston Texans, as well as two seasons with Alabama as their offensive coordinator & quarterbacks coach in 2021 and 2022 where the Crimson Tide boasted one of the nation’s top offenses behind Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young.

But if the accomplished offensive mind does end up parting ways with Ohio State after a brief tenure, Day is prepared to head in a different direction.

“I get it, that’s what we’re talking about, contingency plans,” Day said. “Again, it isn’t just one of those situations where you take out one guy and put another guy in there and it’s like ‘ok, move on.’ It doesn’t work that way.”

“But yes, we did talk to different people for that position and we’ll have contingency plans in place. Hopefully we don’t have to go down that road. But if we do, we’ll adapt.”