Ohio State football’s win over Minnesota highlights the most underappreciated part of Ryan Day’s Buckeye tenure — Jimmy Watkins
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck might as well have been a guest speaker at Ohio Stadium. His Golden Gophers could’ve been a tour group for all Buckeye fans knew. With a massive game against Michigan — perhaps the biggest in school history — looming next week, nobody within 100 miles of Columbus saw an “M” this weekend and pictured Minnesota.
That is exactly what made Ohio State’s 37-3 win on Saturday so impressive. The Buckeyes had every reason to overlook, underestimate and underperform against Fleck’s team seven days before The Game. But for the 39th straight time under Ryan Day, they handled business.
Since Day became coach in 2019, the Buckeyes are 39-0 against unranked opponents. They win those games by 33.4 points on average. And in five games OSU has played the week before Michigan under Day, it has outscored opponents 164-57.
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Those numbers won’t impress Buckeye fans, who have been conditioned to expect dominance against also-rans. And they won’t earn Day any brownie points with a fan base that gives his pair of Michigan losses more weight than all of his wins combined. But before the Buckeye fanbase starts reducing Day’s legacy to one game (again) next weekend, it’s worth pointing out that he is the best quiet-win-coach in Ohio State history.
