Ohio State Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day recently shared obvious regrets that his program didn't get a chance to play in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game in 2023, where they would've faced a TCU Horned Frogs that lost 65-7 to the Georgia Bulldogs, or in 2020, where they would've played an LSU Tigers squad that won 42-25 against the Clemson Tigers.
Per Day during an appearance on the Not Just Football podcast with Cam Heyward and Hayden Walsh, "Those two games to this day, you know — you remember the losses, you know what I mean? The wins kind of just come and go ... But those losses haunt you. I felt like both of those teams were good teams. And if we were able to, you know, move on to the next game [after Clemson], you know, we would have been playing LSU and Joe Burrow, which would have been just a monster game, which would have been great. And then the other year we would've been playing TCU."
Day could've become a household name sooner had his Buckeyes been in the way of Joe Burrow's Tigers, while they would've undoubtedly been a national champion two years early had Ohio State been TCU's counterpart in 2023.
The ascension came later. Maybe the climb made the eventual triumph sweeter. Then again, there's been damage done in the disappointments.
Ryan Day was almost on the brink with Ohio State football before title
After a 13-10 loss in "The Game" at the conclusion of the 2024 regular season, Day was a short CFP run away from being seriously considered for a firing from Columbus. Things worked out, and the Buckeyes walloped the Tennessee Volunteers, Oregon Ducks, Texas Longhorns, and Notre Dame Fighting Irish en route to the first-ever 12-team CFP title win. He was close to ruin, though.
Had Day won a title and gotten the monkey off his back sooner, who knows what could've happened with that momentum? Maybe Ohio State starts its NFL factory, complete with former NFL head coaches as coordinators, earlier.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda. Day has it all now. We'll see what the payoff of waiting so long for his first title win ends up being when it's all said and done.