Ohio State lifted a Michigan weight off its shoulders. There’s no doubting Ryan Day now

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Ryan Day had a lot of time to think about what he’d say after beating Michigan again.

It had been 2,191 days since the last rivalry win. The 2020 game was canceled, and each season since 2021 had brought increasing disappointment.

So, at long last Saturday, with the emotions fresh from No. 1 Ohio State’s 27-9 win over No. 15 Michigan, Day sat down, took a deep breath and … held everything he’d been wanting to say back.

He didn’t grab a microphone and have another viral moment, like asking, “where Lou Holtz is at right now?” after beating Notre Dame in 2023. No, he calmly talked about his team.

“I think the best thing to do is win with humility, and that’s what we’re going to do,” Day said. “I think that speaks to our program. It speaks to what it means to be a Buckeye. We wanted to take this rivalry game back this year, and the way our guys played spoke to that.”

It didn’t matter if Day wanted to take the high road. His smiles and the joy with which he recalled the biggest moments of a dominant win showed it all. This was a massive weight off his shoulders.

“To win this game, it’s just a great moment,” Day said. “It’s one of those moments that you just want to grab on to for a while and just enjoy it.”

Day is now 2-4 against Michigan, not the record he hoped for when he took the head coaching job in 2019, but still worth enjoying at this moment. The Michigan rivalry was the one problem area on an otherwise sterling resume.

Day is one of the best coaches in college football. He’s one of three active coaches with a national championship; he might win another this season, and he has 79 wins in seven seasons as a full-time head coach compared to just 10 losses. But he couldn’t escape his struggles in college football’s greatest rivalry.

Even after winning a national championship, part of Ohio State’s fan base couldn’t forgive him for the last Saturday in November each of the past four years.

“You could see it in my face the last couple of years, you feel like you let everybody down,” Day said. “That’s not a good feeling. You work like hell to make sure you can get your guys prepared, and that’s all you can do.”

Day’s approval rating is surely higher than ever now.

As much as Day had been waiting and imagining what he was going to say after a Michigan win, he envisioned the celebration with his players even more. After the final kneel-down was taken by quarterback Julian Sayin, the entire Ohio State team flocked to the south end zone, where many of the Buckeyes’ fans were. Some jumped into the stands to take pictures, some laid on the ground doing snow angels. Everybody ran across that side and shook hands with every fan who could get near the field.

“It was great to see all the fans stay until the end and cheer on our team and hearing the ‘OH-IO’ right here in the stadium,” Day said. “It was a great moment for our players. They deserve it.”

Then the celebration went into the locker room. Day wouldn’t divulge what was said, but he admitted he’ll never forget that scene.

“Just happy for our guys to see the smiles on their faces and see the sense of accomplishment and the fact we were going to play in this game, really, really hard, for the love of our brother, not the hatred of our opponent,” Day said.

Goodnight Buckeyes 🌰 pic.twitter.com/mSyZoY91MX

— Ohio State Football (@OhioStateFB) November 30, 2025

Day has always been a coach who allows players to talk to him about anything. They have a good relationship on and off the field. It leads to celebrations like Saturday, but also to conversations like the team meetings they had after the frustration of the loss to Michigan a year ago.

Since then, many players on last year’s team and this year’s squad have said Day has been different. So has the program. Ohio State has won 16 games in a row, and just one of them has been decided by single digits, the 14-7 season-opening win against Texas. Per Stathead, the Buckeyes are the first team since 1975 to give up 16 or fewer points in each of their first 12 games.

How has Ohio State done it? The same way it won on Saturday: by playing loose and being itself.

A year ago, Ohio State got into a dogfight with Michigan after quarterback Will Howard threw a second-quarter interception and the Wolverines soon went up 7-3.

This year, the start was similar. The first play of the game was a 36-yard run by Michigan. Day couldn’t believe it.

“I said, ‘You have got to be kidding me right now, this is not what I expected at all,’” Day said.

The defense held Michigan to a field goal, but just two plays into Ohio State’s first offensive drive, Sayin threw an interception. Michigan went up 6-0.

It felt like another upset, or at least a close contest, was coming. But instead of reverting to a conservative mindset amid the snowfall at Michigan Stadium, Ohio State remained aggressive.

It helps to have a quarterback like Sayin, who leads the FBS in completion rate. He completed 73 percent of his passes against Michigan, including 7 of 8 pass attempts for 74 yards and two touchdowns on third and fourth down. He finished with 233 yards and three touchdowns, while star receivers Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate combined for 122 yards and two touchdowns in their first game together since Nov. 1.

It’s all evidence of a change in attitude for Ohio State.

It’s playing with a confidence that it hasn’t had in this rivalry in years. Part of that has been some of the continuity on the coaching staff and making the right additions in the offseason. Day said there’s no confusion on the sideline when mistakes are made.

That’s helped Ohio State hold onto the No. 1 ranking since Week 2. And it’s what makes the Buckeyes such a dangerous team going forward.

“When there’s confusion, that’s where there can be infighting and all of a sudden guys start to act a certain way — and that didn’t happen at all,” Day said. “Even after a slow start, we felt good.”

Day is a chaser. He has plays and calls he’ll undoubtedly scratch his head over when watching the film back on this game. But he’ll do that knowing that this losing streak is over, the fan base is happy, and the Buckeyes are well-positioned for another run at a national championship.