Ryan Day Will Remain on Sideline, Which is Good News for OSU Offense

Ryan Day may no longer be the acting head coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes, but that doesn’t mean he’s planning on leaving the sidelines this year.

After coaching from the press box last season as one of OSU’s two offensive coordinators, Day was forced to move downstairs to the field this year when he was named acting head coach.

Now with Urban Meyer returning to his game-day duties this Saturday, Day would be free to move back upstairs if he wanted to, but the plan now is to keep him on the sidelines where he has helped to lead an Ohio State offense that is second in the nation in scoring.

Why is he staying on the field?

“I think there’s a comfort level between the quarterbacks Dwayne [Haskins] and Tate [Martell] and myself and some of the guys on the offense,” Day said. “It seems to be going well, so we’re going to keep it going.”

Last year, with a four-year starter at quarterback in J.T. Barrett, having the quarterback coach on the sideline wasn’t necessarily necessary. This year, with two young quarterbacks seeing the field, it makes sense for Day to be downstairs in order to be with them whenever possible. That wasn’t the impetus for him being on the sideline to start the season, but the results cannot be argued.

“I think it happened organically just in that I was down on the field for the first few games,” Day said. “There’s a comfort level now. We’re in that routine and we just don’t want to change it. They like it and I kind of like it, so we’re going to keep it going.”

There are times when the Ohio State offense is moving so quickly that there is nothing that Day can do to provide extra coaching. There are other times, however, when Haskins takes a look at the defense and can take a look over to his position coach for some extra help.

“It’s a little different,” Haskins said of having Day at field level. “Coach [Kevin] Wilson is a great mind too, so whether him or Coach Day is on the field, it helps out a lot. Just to be able to look back on the sideline, if I don’t like a look, Coach Day can help me change it.”

Haskins has no preference on who is down on the field to give him a hand, but the results to this point have been incredibly impressive.

The Buckeyes are sixth in the nation in passing efficiency (194.58), third in touchdown passes thrown (12), third in completion percentage (.752), and ninth in passing yardage per game (348.0).

This is a dramatic departure from Ohio State offenses of the past. Amazingly, however, things could be getting even better for the Buckeyes now that Day has more time to be an offensive coordinator.

“I do think now this week we’ll be able to sit down on the bench with the guys on the offense and the quarterbacks and discuss what happened throughout the last series and make some in-game adjustments right there on the bench,” Day said.

“Where maybe the last couple of weeks I wasn’t able to do that because I was kind of watching the defense and watching the special teams and making sure I was ready for that.”