Ryan Day reveals how Ohio State will handle play-calling responsibilities in 2023

Ryan Day made headlines earlier in January, when Kirk Herbstreit revealed the Ohio State head coach was thinking of giving up play-calling duties next season.

While Day isn’t making anything official yet, he spoke during a press conference on Wednesday, where he touched on the topic of freshly-minted offensive coordinator Brian Hartline taking over the responsibility.

“What we’re going to do is going through the spring,” started Day. “Talked to Brian about that. Create some environments where we can have Jim [Knowles] call it. Have an opportunity for Brian to call it. Then we’ll come up for air at the end of the spring. Figure out what that dynamic looks like going into the preseason and obviously the season.

“We won’t decide on any of that now. But give him an opportunity to call it this spring and see how that goes.”

Continuing, Day explained how the added pressure of calling plays can weigh him down during the season.

“Year after year, you sit down and you evaluate everything in the program,” added Day. “Evaluate where college football is. Demands of the job. The way it is now as opposed to two years ago, four years ago. Have to look at time management. I think during the season, or during the offseason, no problem at all. Beginning of the season, pretty good. As we get to the middle of the season, end of the season, I feel that there’s time where I have to manage my time a little bit better. Make sure that as the head coach there’s enough presence going around the building later in the season. Trying to figure out how to remedy that. Making sure that I’m evaluating myself as the head coach the right way. And there’s a lot of different things that are changing on a daily basis.

“Whether that’s giving up the play calling or letting Brian do it or not, we’ll decide that here in the next few months probably. But just trying to figure out how to do a better job.”

Alas, Ryan Day has been in-charge of the Ohio State offense since before he became the Buckeyes head coach, so it’d be a huge change for the program if he was to give up play calling duties. However, it’s a change that could be needed, due to the various demands of being a head coach at the collegiate level.