So who exactly is Ryan Day?
Ryan grew up in Manchester, N.H., which is only about an hour north of Boston. He played QB in high school, and was recruited to play QB for New Hampshire University. Day was a three-year starter, and by the time he graduated, he had broken four school records. The offensive coordinator at New Hampshire for Day's four years was Chip Kelly. Yes, the same Chip Kelly you are thinking of. Kelly was then, and is still now his mentor. In fact, during Day's first press conference as acting head coach, he said Kelly still texts him several times a week.
Upon graduating college in 2001, Ryan went right into coaching. He worked under Kelly for a year as the tight ends coach before leaving to go be a grad assistant at Boston College. After spending two years at Boston College, and helping coach Matt Ryan, he went to work at Florida under Urban Meyer in 2005. He then bounced back and forth between Boston College and Temple for a few years as a wide receivers coach.
In 2012, Day was offered the offensive coordinator position at Temple. As the play-caller at Temple he ran the ball 80 percent of the time. This was largely in part to not having a quality QB, and Temple's QB ran the ball 111 times. Don't let those stats scare you because I don’t see Dwayne Haskins running the ball that many times.
Day left Temple after one year to be the offensive coordinator at Boston College from 2013 to 2014. As the play-caller in 2013 he ran the ball 66 percent of the time. Unlike at Temple, he never really used his QB to run the ball. You might remember the name Andre Williams though. He was the starting running back at Boston College in 2013, and Day recognized his talent. Williams finished the season with 2,177 rushing yards. In 2014, Day went back to a relying heavily on his QB's legs. Boston College ran the ball 72 percent of the time. Between the starting QB, and starting RB, the QB ran the ball 46 percent of the time, and the RB ran the ball 54 percent of the time.
Day then went to work for Kelly as the QB coach for the Philadelphia Eagles in 2015. While there, his starting QB, Sam Bradford, had one of the best seasons of his career. Bradford threw for 3,725 yards and 19 TDs.
He followed Kelly to the 49ers in 2016, and worked as a QB coach for them. His starting QB was Colin Kaepernick, and while he didn’t have a great year, Kaepernick did improve a lot from the previous season. When Kelly was fired in 2016, Day was also relieved of his duties.
Meyer contacted him to come coach the Buckeye QBs in 2017, and the rest his history.
Day is now 39 years old, and he has three children with his wife, Christina.
Being the QB coach for two years at Ohio State has given Day the opportunity to work with Haskins more hand- on. Day knows exactly what Haskins can do, and I trust that he will be able to use the QB's strengths to get the most of out this football team. While Day does like to run the ball a lot, and he does like to use his QBs on the ground. I don't think Haskins will run as much as J.T. Barrett did. Haskins will still run the ball more than people want to imagine, but that will really open up holes for J.K. Dobbins and Mike Weber, who will get the bulk of the carries.
Like noted before, Day will coach the Buckeyes for the first three games. I fully expect us to blow out Oregon State and Rutgers. However, TCU may pose a bigger threat, but I still think we win that game easily. Day knows this is an audition, and he knows he gets to work with one of the best teams in college football. He will be working and preparing this team to come out and play to its true abilities.
When Meyer comes back Sept. 22 against Tulane, Day will go back to being our offensive coordinator, and calling the plays. So in four weeks, if you feel like Day did a great job as a head coach, don’t be sad. Because he will still be calling the plays for us the rest of the year. Sadly, Day will almost definitely get a head coaching job after this year. So enjoy him while we have him.
Go Bucks!!
-Mr. Ohio
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