B1G Time: Ryan Day struggles in big games at Ohio State, but here’s why that’s not as concerning as you think

The Big One remains a big problem for Ryan Day. Following No. 4 Ohio State’s 32-31 road loss to No. 2 Oregon on Saturday in a top-five clash, the same familiar narrative that’s hovered over him stemming from his struggles against Michigan reemerged.

Ryan Day can’t win The Big One.

The trends immediately flooded social media. As Oregon fans swarmed the turf at Autzen Stadium and Dan Lanning smiled into the television cameras letting potential recruits know that this was why you come to Oregon, tweets and graphics showing Day’s record against top-five opponents were everywhere. He’s lost four straight and is 2-6 at Ohio State against such foes.

They’re facts that cannot be argued, and they’re ammunition for any Ohio State fan who believes it’s impetus to fire a coach who has lost only nine of the 70 games he’s coached at Ohio State.

He can’t win The Big One.

But as is often the case, facts often need context, so how about I provide some? You know what’s not uncommon? Coaches, even great ones, having a losing record against top-five teams. Do you know why that is? It’s simple: Top-five teams don’t lose often. If they did, they wouldn’t be ranked in the top five. In the College Football Playoff era, teams ranked anywhere between Nos. 1 through 5 in a given week have a record of 603-130. That’s a winning percentage of 82.3%.

Ryan Day’s win percentage against teams that have lost 17.7% of their games over the last decade is 25%.  Still, perhaps this isn’t enough context, so let’s provide more. First, we’ll compare Ryan Day’s record against top-five teams to the other nine coaches who made up the top 10 of our preseason Power Four Coach Rankings. Here’s how they stack up compared by most wins against top-five teams since the 2019 season when Ryan Day took over the Buckeyes.

Despite Day’s overall struggles, the only two active coaches with more wins against top-five teams in that span are Georgia’s Kirby Smart and Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer. Of the 10 listed, the only ones with a winning record against top-five teams are Smart, DeBoer and Utah’s Kyle Whittingham, but Smart’s the only one to have played more than four such games.

Smart is the only active coach with a winning record against top-five teams having played at least five games, and that includes other coaches not listed here. Other big names like Lane Kiffin, James Franklin, Luke Fickell and Eli Drinkwitz are a combined 0-21 against them. Miami’s Mario Cristobal is the only other active coach to have more than one win against a top-five team outside that list of 10. He’s 2-1 with both victories coming during his time at Oregon.

Now, if we want to include Nick Saban and Jim Harbaugh, things change a bit. Saban went 6-3 against top-five teams over the final five years at Alabama, while Harbaugh went 4-3, with most of those wins being over Ryan Day.

There’s also the comparison between Day and the man he replaced, Urban Meyer. On the surface, it’s easy to see why Ohio State fans are upset about Day’s performance in these games considering Meyer’s record!

But here’s one key difference that should not be ignored, but often is when we talk about coaches who “can’t win The Big One.”

The Big One is the only game Day has had trouble winning.

Six of his nine losses at Ohio State have been against top-five teams. The other three losses were all against ranked teams (No. 12 Oregon and No. 6 Michigan in 2021; a loss to No. 9 Missouri in last year’s Cotton Bowl, a game Ohio State was down key starters). The worst team he’s ever lost to was ranked No. 12 at the time and finished the season 10-4! One of Mario Cristobal’s two top-five wins was against Ohio State in 2021, and Miami was so impressed by it they hired him away from Oregon and he hasn’t beaten a top-five team since — but I digress.

Let’s look at those top 10 coaches from before and see how many of their losses since 2019 have come against top-five teams.

Only two of Meyer’s nine losses at Ohio State came against top-five teams. Four came against teams who weren’t ranked at all.

Another fact worth considering: All eight of Ohio State’s games against top-five competition under Day have come when Ohio State itself was ranked in the top five.

So, long story short, Day is a coach who wins every game he’s supposed to but loses to elite competition, too. At the same time, he also wins against elite competition more often than most others.

None of which is to say Ohio State fans have no right to be frustrated. Smart beats elite teams and has won national titles. Saban did the same, and Harbaugh has, too. That’s the expectation for Ohio State, and that’s the expectation fans have for Day. To this point, he hasn’t met it.

At the same time, few can. So, if you’re one of those Ohio State fans calling for Day’s job, firing him is much simpler than finding a replacement who can accomplish what you want. That might be the most important context of all.

Let’s get into more storylines in the Big Ten coming out of Week 7 before making some picks for the Week 8 games with odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.

Dan Lanning’s signature win

OK, so that’s over 1,000 words on the loser of the weekend’s biggest game, so it’s only right I dedicate some space to the coach whose team won the game. In short, that was a huge win for the Oregon Ducks under Dan Lanning. As you can see by those charts above, until Saturday night, Lanning had trouble breaking through against elite competition himself.

The first of Lanning’s two losses came in his first game at Oregon, a loss to Georgia that seemed impossible from the start. It was the inability to get over the hump last year that was hanging over the program’s head coming into 2024. Twice the Ducks had a chance to take down Washington, and twice they came up short in 2023 only to watch their rivals reach the national championship game.

Oregon’s had plenty of success in recent decades, but for whatever reason, it was a program that always bumped its head against a ceiling and couldn’t break through. The Ducks broke through Saturday night in a loud, frenzied environment. It was a win that put them in the driver’s seat to reach the Big Ten Championship Game and gave their playoff resume a huge boost.

It also felt like the beginning of what could be the biggest rivalry in the Big Ten for the next decade. Yes, Oregon and Ohio State have more historic rivals, but it’s not difficult to envision plenty more top-five battles between these two in the years to come.

Interview of the week

Iowa scored 40 points for the second time this season on Saturday, but it wasn’t a great day for every Hawkeye. One fan suffered the unfortunate fate of taking a kickoff directly to the face. Thankfully, whether through sheer determination and grit, or perhaps some other method of ability to numb the pain, the fan was able to fight through and do a radio interview about it during the game.

Three hot takes

Blazing — The Big Ten West was shot down right before its prime: They shut it down because they knew what was coming! An era of absolute dominance! For so many years, the Big Ten West was ridiculed as a division featuring 13-10 games, but did you see what happened this weekend? Six of the seven teams that once called that beautiful mess of a division home were in action, and Minnesota — in w win — was the only one to score fewer than 37 points.

Northwestern, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Purdue averaged 43.6 points. Purdue scored 49 points and lost!

It’s clear that Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State begged the Big Ten to disband the divisions out of fear of being embarrassed in the years to come.

Will leave a scar if touched — This Saturday is Michigan’s last stand: Michigan is still ranked in both major polls. Should it be? I don’t think so, no, seeing how its best win to this point is a 3-3 USC team and it lost its last game to a Washington team that just gave up 40 points to Iowa.

Regardless of its ranking, Michigan’s showdown with Illinois this weekend feels like an absolute must-win for the Wolverines. Michigan is a small favorite in the game, but it’s a ranking that feels based more on reputation (or perhaps Illinois’ second-half performance against Purdue) than what we’ve actually seen from the Wolverines this year.

If Michigan wins, it’s 5-2 and could build momentum with a follow-up victory against Michigan State. But if the Wolverines lose, they’ll fall to 4-3 and still have to play Oregon, Ohio State, and, yes, Indiana. I still think Michigan would get to a bowl game with a loss to the Illini, but it’d be far from a certainty.

This feels warm — USC isn’t bad: OK, so I just dissed the Trojans a bit by dismissing them as Michigan’s best win, and while I’m sure USC fans are tired of the moral victories, I mean it when I say USC is the best 3-3 team in the country. Yes, they blew it late against Penn State, much like they blew it late against Michigan. However, I can’t help but feel like the Trojans are playing well overall, and while the Minnesota loss hurts, things should get much better over the second half of the season.

USC’s next five games are against Maryland, Rutgers, Washington, Nebraska and UCLA. It’s not easy, but it’s far more manageable than an opening slate that included games against a Penn State and LSU team that are both sitting in the top 10 right now. Oh, and USC did beat LSU! People seem to have forgotten that pretty quickly.

Anyway, my point is that while USC is out of the Big Ten race, it’s not impossible to think this team can get to eight wins in the year and maybe even finish it off with a win over Notre Dame.

The thing about time zones

We are not done providing context to facts this week. Before Saturday’s games, there was a trend floating around the college football universe about how Big Ten teams that traveled at least two time zones to play a conference game this season were 1-8. It was a trend meant to showcase the potential impact of a conference that had expanded to include both coasts.

It was also a trend that lacked a serious level of context. First of all, I know it was meant as a Big Ten stat, but to not include nonconference games is silly. Does travel only impact conference games?

The real mark heading into last week’s games was 2-10. There were four more games on Saturday that saw Big Ten teams travel at least two time zones, and they went 2-2 in those games, bringing the record to 4-12.

But guess what? The 4-12 mark doesn’t tell you that the favorites in those 16 games are 13-3. The third loss was Ohio State losing as a road favorite to Oregon by a point. The other two losses were also by road favorites, and both were USC, who lost as a favorite against Michigan and Minnesota. Of the three losses, only USC’s loss to Minnesota featured a spread greater than one score, so it’s the only one that could be considered a “major upset.”

In other words, the teams that were expected to win have won at a very high rate despite the travel. So, how much impact has travel truly had?

Going with my gut

Every week I pick the Big Ten games against the spread based on nothing but my gut reaction to the number. No digging into numbers — just vibes, baby. I even track my record to embarrass myself publicly. 

All Big Ten college football odds via FanDuel Sportsbook. Check out the latest FanDuel promo to get in the game.

No. 24 Michigan at No. 22 Illinois: Oddly enough, I’d have liked Michigan’s chances more if Illinois hadn’t blown a huge lead against Purdue in the second half and needed overtime to escape an embarrassing loss. If that hadn’t happened, I think Illinois would be favored. Offensively, it’s been the far better team, and while Michigan’s defense has been strong overall, it’s had problems against passing attacks, and Illinois can move the ball through the air. But can Michigan score enough on offense on the road to cover as a favorite? I’m not so sure. Illinois +3.5

No. 2 Oregon at Purdue — Purdue +27.5
Nebraska at No. 16 Indiana — Nebraska +6.5
Wisconsin at Northwestern — Northwestern +6.5
UCLA at Rutgers — Rutgers -4.5
USC at Maryland — USC -7.5
Iowa at Michigan State — Iowa -6.5

Last Week: 3-4
Season: 42-29-1