Now that Michigan has beaten Ohio State for a fourth consecutive season, Desmond Howard has finally wrapped up his victory laps.
The former Heisman winner turned College GameDay analyst, however, now seems to feel a twinge of sympathy for Ryan Day. And during Friday’s GameDay broadcast from South Bend, Howard took up a collection for the embattled Ohio State head coach, lamenting the immense pressure the program and its fanbase placed on him.
“During the offseason, when they spent $20 million to go handpick some players in the portal to bring them to Columbus, the primary reason was to beat Michigan,” said Howard. “And I thought they put him in a bad situation. Not only that but then they went out and got Chip Kelly, who was the head coach of UCLA and became his offensive coordinator.
“In my opinion, that was like the athletic director and the powers that be saying, ‘We’re pushing all of our chips in the middle of the table, Ryan.’ ‘This is the year you have to get it done.’ And I thought that was too much pressure on him — I really do. I put out an Instagram message once I saw that, and I said, ‘Man, this is unfair.'”
Howard’s argument boils down to this: Ohio State has provided Ryan Day with all the resources he could ask for, and yet the high expectations that come with those resources are unfair.
“But, with that being said, Ryan Day was an assistant coach in Columbus,” Howard continued. “He understands the culture down there. When he accepted the head coaching job, he knew what was the expectations of him. And because he just hasn’t lived up to those expectations…
“The 10 [losses] are normally teams who are equal to him, as far as roster and talent. Now, you’re talking about the other teams that he’s been able to beat, those teams, normally they’ll have four or five-star guys, but when he’s going up against these other teams — and I wasn’t even talking about Missouri. They went up against Missouri, and they had three points. To me, you’re Ohio State, though. You out-recruit Missouri. You’re supposed to score more than three points against Missouri.
“I like the guy, I’m just saying this is what his record [66-10] is. You guys look at somebody’s record and don’t believe this is who they are as a coach.”
Howard may have taken a moment to pass the hat for Day — not Nick Saban’s hat — but the charity ends there. And as far as Howard is concerned, Day hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt — only reasonable doubt.
But that ultimately contradicts the very straw man argument Howard was making in the first place.
If Ohio State has given Day all the resources he could ask for, then the pressure to succeed isn’t unfair — it’s the price of playing at a program with championship expectations.
[College GameDay]
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.