Ryan Day's new contract makes sense, but it doesn't come without risks

So far, Ryan Day has been the Lincoln Riley 2.0 that Ohio State was hoping he’d be.

That is, a 30-something offensive coordinator who took over for a legend and made that transition look as smooth as Ken Griffey Jr.’s swing. Like Riley, Ohio State’s first year with its OC-to-HC resulted in a conference title and a Playoff appearance. Also like Riley, Day’s modern offense looks like it’ll yield plenty more conference titles and Heisman Trophy candidate quarterbacks.

Riley got a new deal after his first year, and as we found out on Tuesday, so did Day. The Buckeyes announced that Day agreed to a 3-year extension. On his new deal, he’ll make $5.6 million in 2020, $6.5 million in 2021 and $7.6 million in 2022.

In other words, Day is no longer a cheap investment for Ohio State. The word “cheap” is relative. Compared to Urban Meyer, Day’s $4.5 million salary was cheap. Meyer made $7.6 million in his final season in Columbus. In other words, Day is set to earn the same amount in 2022 when he’ll be entering Year 4.

Last year, Day was ranked No. 22 among coach salaries in college football (USA Today). All 21 of the head coaches ahead of him were at least in Year 3 as an FBS head coach. Of those 21 coaches, 18 of them were at least in Year 5 as an FBS head coach. The ones who weren’t were Riley, Kirby Smart and Scott Frost. Those coaches have obviously had varying levels of success with those paychecks.

Let that serve as just one of the reminders that there’s a risk factor here.

Don’t get it twisted. Ohio State extending Day makes sense. Given the new trend of the NFL poaching young offensive minds, locking Day down was key. There are only 8 active coaches who have a Playoff berth, and Day is one of them. Despite the fact that 2019 was his first time being a full-time head coach on any level, there’s nothing that suggests Day is about to go into some post-Year 1 Brady Hoke collapse.

But Ohio State just made an awfully large investment into someone who is still so new to his surroundings. For what it’s worth, I’m not referring to his surroundings at Ohio State. Day is about to begin his 4th season in Columbus, but 2020 was his first full recruiting cycle. We have yet to see how he’ll develop top-level talent from the jump.

The Buckeyes didn’t have some mass exodus when Meyer retired, so there wasn’t a roster to overhaul. Forgive me for using the old “he won with all the old coach’s players” thing, but yeah, the vast majority of that roster was recruited by Meyer. We’ll have to wait another year or 2 in order to see what a Day roster will look like. Based on his No. 5 recruiting class for 2020 and the No. 1 class he currently has for 2021, it won’t lack talent.

The quarterback position, specifically, hasn’t lacked talent. Day played a major part in developing Dwayne Haskins, and he went out and nabbed Justin Fields from the transfer portal. Haskins, however, wasn’t Day’s recruit. And while Fields was hand-picked by Day, he was hardly a diamond in the rough as one of the top-rated quarterback recruits of the 21st century.

Will Day be able to recognize the 17-year-old kid who has that kind of potential in his system? I’d say those odds are favorable, but he’s unproven in that aspect.

Day is also unproven at other things like retaining a staff. We just saw Texas poach offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Mike Yurcich. Obviously getting paid double the money played a part in that, but who knows if Day could’ve prevented that by going to bat for Yurcich earlier in the offseason.

Again, these are the things that come with being a first-time head coach. There are still going to be growing pains. It doesn’t mean Day was overpaid. It just means these things are magnified much more when you’re paid like a 10-year veteran and not a promising up-and-comer who can say things like this and get a massive ovation:

Ryan Day, addressing the Schottenstein Center crowd, brings up a Fiesta Bowl loss to Clemson.

“That game did not sit well with us. And you have my word we’re not going to forget about that game.” pic.twitter.com/9sxkBRKbOf

— Colin Hass-Hill (@chasshill) January 24, 2020

Day, with this new deal, moved into that upper echelon after 1 year as an FBS head coach. It’ll change by the time it rolls around, but only 2 coaches in 2019 made the $7.6 million coming Day’s way in 2022 (you know their names). If Day continues to win at his current level, that number will continue to climb even though those year-by-year bumps were put in the contract to avoid the need to negotiate a new deal.

If Day has Ohio State competing for a national title by then, nobody will think twice about his significant raise. But anything short of being in that top tier of the college football elite, which Ohio State wasn’t in for the last 3 years of the Meyer era, and that salary is the first thing that fans will point to. We don’t know what Day’s floor is. One would think it’ll be lower than Meyer’s. After all, the guy had the best conference winning percentage ever for a B1G coach.

Ohio State has all the confidence in the world that Day is going to be the coach of the decade the same way Meyer was in the 2010s and the same way Jim Tressel was in the 2000s. Meyer won a national title in Year 3 and Tressel won it all in Year 2. Both of them inherited less favorable situations than Day, too.

That’s not to say Day has to do that in 2020 or 2021 to show he’s worth the investment, but if he’s heading into Year 4 with that $7.6 million and he hasn’t gotten Ohio State back to that level yet, he’ll no longer be considered the up-and-coming coach. He’ll be the coach who is making some fans wonder if his ceiling is as high as they thought it was after that first year.

But obviously, Ohio State isn’t banking on that. The athletic department is banking on Day getting to that level. That’s the only reason you agree to a deal that’ll (eventually) pay a coach north of $7 million a year after just 1 year on the job. Smart? Perhaps.

A calculated risk? Definitely.