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Joel Klatt explains why Ryan Day is going through ‘growing pains’ at Ohio State
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Ohio State is struggling, and for the first time in a long time isn’t the lone team feared in the B1G.
The Buckeyes defense allowed Minnesota to run for 203 yards in Week 1, and then Oregon capitalized on the exposed the flaws during their Week 2 when it dropped the Buckeyes 35-28 in Columbus. Even Tulsa gave them a game.
The signs were there at the end of 2020, and OSU head coach Ryan Day had to deal with the departure of Jeff Hafley as defensive coordinator — from that point on things have not been good for Day and the Buckeyes.
FOX Sports analyst Joel Klatt describes the trials and tribulations of dealing with coaching staff turnover as “growing pains’ and expects Day to be dealing with it for a while.
Klatt went into detail in a recent show with Colin Cowherd:
“They’re going through some wild growing pains right now. And you could argue (Ryan Day) just inherited everything from Urban (Meyer). But that’s not technically accurate because he recruited Justin Fields to come there. That was a post-Urban decision from Justin Fields.
“As a head coach, what these guys are going to have to start to understand, these young guys, and Lincoln Riley is gonna deal with it, and Ryan Day is gonna deal with it, is that you have to either be Dabo Swinney or Nick Saban … Dabo Swinney has created a culture where all of his assistants just stay. So he doesn’t have to deal with the turnover on the staff. (Tony) Elliott has been there, (Brent) Venables has been there.
“Or you’ve got to be Nick Saban, which is ‘I’ll win with eight different coordinators. It doesn’t matter because my standard is high enough.”
Ohio State hosts Akron this weekend.
Scott Schultz covers Michigan State Football, along with Breaking News for B1G Football & Basketball for Saturday Tradition. He also serves as an Automotive News Editor & Writer, and Softball Writer elsewhere on the web. Follow him on Twitter @SRSchultz.