Ohio State player says Ryan Day was ‘unfairly criticized’ for Michigan losses

INDIANAPOLIS — It’s been tough sledding in Columbus, Ohio lately. No matter how good the Buckeyes have been, there has always been a dark cloud over Ohio Statehaving lost to football rival Michigan the past three years.

Winning the game began to feel like OSU’s birthright, given results dating back to Jim Tressel’s tenure in Columbus. But after former Wolverines coach Jim Harbaugh said at Big Ten Media Days in 2021 that Michigan would beat Ohio State, win the Big Ten or die trying, things quickly changed in Ann Arbor.

Now it’s the 2024 iteration of Big Ten media days and the Ohio State contingent has its chance to dispel the media narratives on day one. OSU senior edge rusher Jack Sawyer spent part of his time on stage supporting his coach, Ryan Day, after the last three losing years.

“It’s a hard thing to see,” Sawyer said. “If you ask Coach Day, Coach Day is man enough to sit here and say this is part of the job he signed up to do.”

Sawyer went further, noting that the narratives target his head coach.

Day went from being something of a prodigy to being 1-3 in the rivalry. There were times when Day was overconfident (behind closed doors, he said in 2020 that the Buckeyes would put up 100 on the Wolverines) or one of his teammates was (receivers coach Brian Hartline proclaimed that what OSU did in the dark would come to light in 2022, before Michigan’s victory, 45-23). Sawyer says it’s the players’ fault and that Day doesn’t deserve any of the criticism he’s received from the media over the past three years.

“Being a guy who would go to war for him any day, no matter what the issue, I think he gets unfairly criticized for a lot of things,” Sawyer said. “A lot of rubbish comes out afterwards – comes out after we lost to those guys about him not caring. Which is completely – couldn’t be more wrong. So I think sometimes he gets unfairly criticized, but he knows what he signed up to do and we all signed up to do the same things too – we also fall short. It doesn’t actually come back to him, it comes back to us as players and that’s why we decided to come back.”

This year, the Buckeyes are hoping things turn in their favor, having loaded up both through the draft and the transfer portal. Meanwhile, Michigan football will have a first-year head coach in Sherrone Moore and will have a new starting quarterback.

The game will take place at noon on November 30th in Columbus.

The story originally appeared on Wolverines Wire