Ohio State Football: This year can establish Ryan Day’s legacy

The Ohio State football program has a lot of tradition of being great. All of the great coaches in program history have had a breakthrough season. We thought that Ryan Day’s breakthrough season was going to be 2020, but he fell just shy of a national championship.

This is the year that is set up for Day to truly breakthrough. This is the year that he can establish his legacy as a great Ohio State football coach. The team that he has assembled, especially on the offensive side of the ball. This is the team set up to win it all now.

Next year will be a different story. The Buckeyes will lose a lot of talent on offense. They lose their best receiver, starting quarterback, and possibly four of their five starting offensive linemen. No matter how good of a program you are, that’s a lot to replace in just one year.

I think Day understands that if there is any year to go for broke, this is the year to do it. He has to coach like that throughout the season. He’s already an aggressive coach, which I like, but he needs to be aggressive in the right situations. There’s still nothing wrong with taking a field goal.

This is the year that we find out how much Day can become a complete head coach. Even though he’s not a defensive coach, the buck still stops with him. This defense needs to see a moderate improvement for this team to have any chance of winning a national title.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that 2022 could be a legacy-defining year for Day. He can firmly stamp himself into the history books of Ohio State football if he can indeed bring home that elusive championship.