Man, this whole Ryan Day stats thing started bugging me yesterday. Saw folks arguing online about whether he’s really that great or just riding past success. Figured instead of just shouting opinions, I should actually dig into the numbers myself. Didn’t really know where to begin, honestly.
Where I Started Digging
First thing I did? Went hunting for legit college football stats sites. You know, the ones the sports journalists might use. Took me a hot minute to find the main hub, the NCAA official records site. Typed “Ryan Day” into their search box, fingers crossed. But get this – Coach Day? He barely shows up! His stats aren’t listed like the players’ stats are. Total facepalm moment. All this effort and the obvious place barely had a trace of him as a head coach.
So, plan B kicked in. I dove into the specific Big Ten Conference site next. Searched there too, hoping conference stuff might be better. Still came up mostly empty. Seriously frustrating. Realized then I had to look somewhere else entirely: the Ohio State Buckeyes official site. This felt like backtracking, just heading straight to the team source.
Assembling the Puzzle Pieces
Alright, deep breath. Now I was on Ohio State’s site. Looked for their football section and eventually found their historical year-by-year results page. Scrolled way down – felt like forever – until I spotted 2019. That’s Day’s first official season running the show after the interim year. Opened up the 2019 season stats report.
Here’s what I did next:
- Flipped through each season report from 2019 onwards. Every single one. My finger got tired scrolling.
- Grabbed the overall win-loss record for each year. Wrote it down on a scrap of paper like some old-timer. 13-1, 7-1, 11-2, etc.
- Jotted down their Big Ten record too. See how they stacked up inside the conference.
- Noted their final ranking at the end of each year. Always interesting to see if the polls agreed with the record.
- Tracked how far they went in the postseason. Bowl wins, playoff appearances, that stuff.
Kept doing this boring loop for 2020, 2021, 2022… all the way to this past season. Man, those PDF documents were large and slow to load. Felt like counting grains of sand.
Adding Up the Totals
Once I had all the yearly scraps of paper spread out on my desk, it was math time. Simple, but tedious. Grabbed my calculator app (thank god for phones).
- Added up all the wins across every season.
- Added up all the losses.
- Calculated his overall winning percentage. Punching in those numbers.
Also went hunting for some extra spice – you know, records against big rivals. Found Michigan. Looked at his head-to-head specifically against them during his tenure. Ouch.
What Stood Out to Me
After all that scribbling and adding, patterns started jumping out:
- The sheer number of wins. Dude wins a LOT of games most years. Crazy win percentage overall.
- Big Ten dominance… mostly. He keeps getting them to the Championship game.
- The Michigan Elephant in the room. That losing record against them popped out hard once I tallied it. Can’t ignore that.
- Conference championships? Yep, a couple are there. Checked those boxes.
- Playoff showings – he gets the team there fairly often.
- The lack of a National Title. Seems like the biggest missing piece folks argue about when judging him.
Putting It Together
Honestly? I went into this kinda skeptical after the losses to Michigan. Figured maybe he wasn’t really that good. But after seeing all those seasons laid out? The sheer volume of wins is impossible to dismiss. Guy’s won something like 11 games a season for years straight. That’s wild.
BUT, and it’s a big but… those losses to Michigan sting way more than those gaudy win totals sometimes. They just loom so huge, especially the last three years. Also noticed he seems to drop at least one weird game most seasons besides Michigan. Slight hiccup tendency?
Seeing it all written down makes it messy to judge. Ridiculous overall success – top tier in college football for win percentage, competing for championships almost every year. And yet… that one huge, glaring flaw against the biggest rival, and the missing final trophy. Kinda drives you crazy looking at it all side-by-side. Makes the fan arguments make a lot more sense now. Awesome records with a very specific problem right in the middle of them.
