Ryan Day, Jim Harbaugh and an Ohio State-Michigan reversal of fortune

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Four years ago, a clean-shaven Ryan Day celebrated his first win against Michigan as Ohio State’s head coach. 

“In games like this,” Day said, “it comes down to players.”

Justin Fields had thrown for 302 yards and four touchdown passes. J.K. Dobbins had run for 211 yards and four touchdowns. Future first-rounders Chase Young and Jeff Okudah had helped hold the Wolverines down in a 56-27 win.

In a room about 30 yards away, Jim Harbaugh got grilled. 

“Is it a talent gap?” a reporter asked Michigan’s head coach. “Is it a preparation gap? Is it a coaching gap? What is the biggest difference between you and Ohio State?”

Harbaugh’s head whipped around at the phrase “coaching gap.” If he had heat vision, the reporter asking the question would have been incinerated. “I’ll answer your questions,” Harbaugh said. “Not your insults.”

But it wasn’t an insult. It was a legitimate question to an otherwise successful coach who had lost his first five meetings against his team’s most hated rival. In that moment, it felt as if Harbaugh never would close the gap. 

Saturday, Day sat in the same room and looked just as helpless as Harbaugh did on that day four years ago. Answers were demanded, but there were none to give.

“We know what this game means to so many people, and so to come up short is certainly crushing,” Day said. “Not only because you invest your whole year in it, at Ohio State, what this game means and so, there’s a locker room in there that’s devastated. It wasn’t a lack of effort, but again, we didn’t win the rushing yards, we didn’t win the turnover battle, so you’re not going to win this game.”

Day is 0-3 against Michigan since that first win. A reign of dominance over the Wolverines launched by Jim Tressel and elevated by Urban Meyer has been fumbled away. Saturday, Day didn’t even lose to Harbaugh. Day’s nemesis missed the game serving the third of a three-game suspension handed down by the Big Ten as a result of an investigation into allegations of in-person scouting and signal stealing in violation of NCAA rules. Michigan people think Day or someone else at Ohio State dropped the dime on the scouting network allegedly run by former Michigan analyst Connor Stalions. The Wolverines believe the accusations were a way to take Harbaugh off the board.

Those accusations might ultimately do just that depending on how the NCAA investigation — which could last a long time — finishes, but on Saturday that just meant that Day couldn’t even beat interim coach Sherrone Moore.

Moore, Michigan’s offensive coordinator, promised his players Friday that he’d be the most aggressive playcaller they’d ever seen come Saturday, and he kept that promise. Three times in the first half of Saturday’s 30-24 Michigan win, Moore went for it on fourth and short. The first, on fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line, resulted in a Blake Corum touchdown to cash in on a Will Johnson interception of Kyle McCord. The second and third came on a 14-play, 75-yard touchdown drive in the second quarter. “When you have confidence in them, it’s just like first down,” Moore said of the fourth-down plays.

Meanwhile, Day faced fourth-and-2 from the Michigan 34-yard line trailing 14-10 with 40 seconds remaining. The Buckeyes had crossed into Michigan territory on yet another superhuman Marvin Harrison Jr. catch. In a series that’s all about players, Ohio State still had the best one on the field. But after a Cade Stover catch short of the stick, Day decided not to try to get any closer. Instead of having faith in his offense as Moore had thrice over, Day let the clock run. Then he called timeout and sent out Jayden Fielding for a 52-yard field goal attempt that Fielding missed as the half expired.

Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti taking Harbaugh off the field made Day look even worse as Day got out-maneuvered by a guy in his fourth game as an acting head coach. The comparisons to John Cooper — an otherwise excellent Ohio State coach who went 2-10-1 against Michigan and lost his job because of it — continue to dominate any discussion of Day’s tenure. He’s 56-7 in five seasons at the helm of Ohio State. He’s 39-3 in Big Ten play. He’s 1-3 against Michigan, and that’s what matters most.

Though Harbaugh wasn’t at the Big House on Saturday, his presence hovered over everything. He is, after all, the one who engineered the turnaround. 

If you’d like, you can blame sign-stealing. Plenty of rival fans certainly will.

But there’s a lot more to Michigan’s reversal of the rivalry. The teams didn’t meet in 2020 — Michigan blamed COVID-19; Ohio State blamed Michigan ducking the Buckeyes — but when The Game recommenced in 2021 Harabugh had gutted and revamped his staff. Defensive coordinator Don Brown had been put out to pasture and replaced by Mike Macdonald, a rising star essentially on loan from the Baltimore Ravens and Harbaugh’s brother John. Former Michigan receiver Ron Bellamy, a longtime Michigan high school coach, came on to coach safeties and serve as an ace recruiter.

Former Michigan star Mike Hart, a rising star in the profession, came home after a stint at Indiana. Most importantly, Moore was moved from tight ends coach to offensive line coach and co-offensive coordinator. 

Michigan’s staff got younger and better. Meanwhile, the Wolverines’ development continued to improve. While Michigan did sign some top-shelf recruits — Johnson, tailback Donovan Edwards and quarterback J.J. McCarthy, for example — Ohio State remained safely ahead in the recruiting rankings. But what Michigan did much better was turn the recruits it did sign into NFL players, and that altered the results on the field.

In the five drafts before that 2019 game, Ohio State had 40 players drafted — including 12 first-rounders. In the four since, the Buckeyes have had 31 players drafted with eight first-rounders.

In the five drafts before that 2019 game, Michigan had 24 players drafted — including four first-rounders. In the four since, Michigan has had 32 players drafted with four first-rounders.

The Ohio State players still get chosen higher. The Buckeyes’ median draft position in the past four drafts is 75, while the Wolverines’ is 152.5. But Michigan’s increased draft output, which is expected to eclipse double digits this year, has closed a gap that once felt like a canyon.

Now, Michigan can make up the difference by having the better of the two starting QBs (McCarthy), the better offensive line and the better interior defensive line. Saturday was a matchup of two teams that looked awfully close, but Michigan won the margins because of those positions and because Moore called a better game than Day did. 

Had a few plays gone differently, Ohio State would be prepping for the Big Ten title game and a likely College Football Playoff berth. Instead, Michigan won a chance for Harbaugh to get the conference championship trophy handed to him by the guy who suspended him earlier this month.

Day’s Buckeyes didn’t look that far away from Harbaugh/Moore’s Wolverines on Saturday, but as Day sat in that room where he once celebrated and searched for answers that wouldn’t come, the gap felt enormous.