89 percent of college football coaches who win 50 percent of their games in five years are not fired. Ryan Day, the coach of Ohio State, is not expected to be the first. However, Day lost to Michigan on Saturday in the rivalry match that ended all rivalries for the third time in a row. Sherrone Moore, the Wolverines’ assistant coach, led the team on game day by donning the iconic headset because head coach Jim Harbaugh was serving a Big Ten ban.
Moore outcoached Day when there were two teams on the field with roughly comparable skill levels. Day didn’t make any disastrous mistakes, but on two crucial fourth-down plays, he was not bold, and both times, his caution let him down against Ohio State. On a fourth-and-1 play at Ohio State’s 46, Day decided to punt, but his punter mishandled a 33-yard duck that missed the 20-yard line. Later, on fourth and 2, at Michigan’s 34-yard line, the coach decided to try for a field goal just before halftime. The subsequent 52-yard try was longer than Jayden Fielding, the kicker for the Buckeyes,’s career-long 47-yard effort, and he failed wide left. The whole game, Ohio State made no attempts to convert on fourth downs. Moore forced Michigan to attempt three, and the Wolverines successfully completed each one on their way to two touchdowns. A 34-yard pass from Michigan’s running back to his tight end, which set up another field goal, was the game’s top schematic play. Moore is also the team’s offensive coordinator.
Day is the head coach of the college football team with the greatest inherent advantage. If you were hired as head coach, you, yes you, would lead Ohio State to at least a respectable bowl game. Ohio State will always, no matter what, assemble one of the finest rosters in the nation, according to gravity. (The Buckeyes have the advantage of being the only program that is a given in a state that produces a large number of talented high school athletes, as well as being a well-known national brand that can visit high schools in Florida, Texas, and other states and produce potential NFL players.) But on Saturday, following two years of crushing defeats, Day lost in a different fashion: all day, the man on the opposite sideline, with little head coaching experience except from filling in for his boss when the latter was not permitted inside the stadium, outwitted Day. Michigan won 30–24 in the end. On their way to the College Football Playoffs are the Wolverines.
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