Detest Day, but the idolization of Urban is nonsense

We saw what happened when Urban took a Heisman trophy winner and stacked roster up against a Lloyd Carr team.

Great thread. I've defended Day plenty before this season's absurd smear campaign. Neither he nor Dantonio had to face a Michigan team of this caliber. Give us this team back in 2015 and both of those guys get erased. 

The Buckeyes are about to undergo a coaching exodus from their team. Day's staff outside of Jim Knowles and Larry Johnson is one of the youngest and most inexperienced in college football.

Knowles may soon be linked to the head coaching job at Duke where he previously served as defense coordinator. Brian Hartline, who many expected would emerge as the lead play-caller this year as offensive coordinator, is essentially a coordinator without a gameday coordinating role with Day handling that job. 

In a year when the Buckeyes defense dramatically improved, the offense certainly didn't. So who is to blame for that? Day can't blame staff for losing on Saturday, and he's lost to a Michigan understudy coach who in the minds of most was more aggressive and creative in the process. What to do? Change the cast of coaches what else can you do. 

Hell, urban loses a couple against mich but for injured QBs and horrible officiating.

Saturday's game was frighteningly close.

I disagree. I think M left quite a few points on the board, some due to good execution by the Ohio defense, some due to JJ not being 100% (why else have Orji come in to run?), but some also due to Moore chosing conservative options when circumstances allowed. Coach Moore showed a willingness to be aggressive at other key points in the game, so I've come to believe he's both strategic and disciplined.  i.e. his level of aggressiveness is determined by good judgment.  I believe (ok this is feelingsball), if he had thought he would need 7 more points to win this game he would have put the team in position to go get it. 

Do you think this manufactured cheating thing has bought Day another year?

Urban Meyer is a cunt. 

You're minimizing the effect Meyer had in actively undermining his main rivals off the field.  There's a reason he never faced a powerhouse M or FSU team on the field.  2016 Michigan was probably the closest he came, and to your point he had no business winning that game.

But he has had a way to induce suboptimal conditions for his rivals, going way back.  It's very likely he would have never seen a Michigan team like this, one way or another.

Two things can be true at the same time. Urban despite being a shithead is a really good coach. He also caught M at a "great time" and had the refs on his side in 16. 

Even Zach Smith gets that the current Michigan program is not the Michigan program that Meyer faced.

FWIW Ryan Day has thus far won 89% of his games - that's a higher percentage than Meyer (85%), Knute Rockne (88%), and just about any other coach in history.

[Mount Union legendary coach Larry Kehres and current coach Geoff Dartt each won 93% of their games, but they're Division III]

Regardless of what you think about Meyer as a person, he’s proven he’s one the the greatest college coaches ever. Day was never going to be fully able to live up to that, and neither would anyone else. 

I would argue in a heartbeat that Day has done better than Meyer. In each year in the second half of his tenure, Meyer’s teams lost inexplicably. 2016, shutout by Clemson. 2017, blown out by Iowa. 2018, blown out by Purdue. Day's teams have only lost to teams of equal or greater talent. Which brings me to Michigan. Only once did Meyer face a Michigan team of equal or greater talent - 2016 - and that outcome was questionable at best. Ryan Day has faced better Michigan teams than Meyer ever faced and it is not even close. IMO if Urban Meyer were around this year, OSU would have lost badly to both Michigan and somebody else random, like Wisconsin or Minnesota.

I think day deserves a lot of credit for his success, and being a good role model for his team, and a scandal free program,

I hate Ohio State but I think the animosity toward day around here is way overblown. He's good at his job

Sorry, but this feels like a lot of revisionist history.

Urban is the 2nd greatest coach of his generation (Saban is #1).  3 National Titles at 2 schools over 8 years speaks for itself.

A primary reason that "Harbaugh has created a juggernaut Urban never had to face" is BECAUSE Urban had a juggernaut of his own.  It's hard to create a juggernaut when one already exists, one that Harbaugh himself (whether folks like this or not) never did post a win against.

I don't think the 2016 team was much worse than the last 3 years, if at all

2016 and 2018 were pretty good.

Urban Meyer has won three national championships at two different schools and had an undefeated season at another. He is a truly elite college coach (probably top 10 of all time). I don't know if he still has that dawg in him but I'm actually more than happy not to find out.

Michigan has beaten him once before though--one of our coaching staff was on the team that did.

I detest Day and Meyer.

Urban Meyer is done coaching.

Mike Vrabel has said he wouldn't leave Tennessee for OSU.

The bridge for Luke Fickell has been burned.

Lane Kiffin LOL

Good take.  Who knows what would happen if Urban played Harbaugh. We had that 2015-2018. 2015 was a rebuilding year, 2016 was The Spot game, with Wilton Speight as QB, and 2018 they had Don Brown’s defense downloaded, from film study and also a bit of sign stealing chicanery.  That makes Urban 3-0, but one win was heavily, heavily asterisked, and Urban had the superior QB every time.

There's no accounting for some people's misplaced admiration for retired coaches. Ala this gem from OSU slappy GoForThree at Off Tackle Empire:

I find myself yearning for folksiness of Jim Tressel in a sweater vest, talking about “our great young people” and his belief in the value of education. I yearn for the class and leadership Lloyd Carr displayed in victory and defeat, on and off the field. I miss Mark Dantonio’s curmudgeonly, coach-em-up ways and his refusal to buy into the cult of fame. Now we have Jim Harbaugh selling his disgraced coaching staff as leaders of “America’s team” amidst multiple scandals. We have Ryan Day screaming about Lou Holtz in post-game interviews like a frat boy after a fight that consisted only of shoving. Then there’s the Mel Tucker saga.

Say what?

This years Bucknut version was tougher beyond question but just not tough enough. I can not for the life of me get over when Zinter went down and this team exploded to go back up 10. It was like a shot in the tough arm that says time to go boys. Score TD immediate 3 and out and kick FG. Salt game away time... This team like Brian described in his game review isn't about talent, isn't about coaching, isn't about all the things that typically make a college football team great. Its about the the right people at the exact right moment in time. Blake Corum could have done any number of gestures celebrating a brilliant Michigan career instead he is thinking of his teammate and flashes the 6-5. I hope this culture is sustainable but finding character guys like JJ McCarthy with supreme talent who doesn't care if he throws 7 passes in a game is going to be very hard to duplicate. Just go finishes this off boys you will go down in Michigan Lore 

Can we just stop assuming Day is a good coach?  He's been given a pass because he was hand-picked by Urban.  

Do you think Ryan Day could win at Stanford? Bowling Green? Vandy?  Anywhere he doesn't have a significant talent advantage?  I haven't seen anything from his career that definitively says yes.