Ryan Day enters his season No. 9 as Ohio State’s full-time head coach in 2026, and the Buckeyes will kick off their campaign against Ball State in a game that should be a lopsided win. 

Ohio State faces a gauntlet of a regular season schedule, one that still brings sky-high expectations for Day and his program.

Day has taken what Urban Meyer handed him and leveled Ohio State up in multiple ways. The Buckeyes have adjusted nicely to the NIL and revenue-share era, and the transfer portal era hasn’t slowed them down either. 

Under Day, Ohio State has won a national championship, reached another title game, and probably should have made it in 2022 when Marvin Harrison Jr. exited the Georgia game with a concussion. Ohio State controlled the game against Georgia and would have advanced to a title game they would have been favored in. The program has been in great shape with Day at the helm.

Ryan Day’s record speaks for itself and he sees another decade in Columbus 

Day’s 82-12 record as Ohio State’s head coach amounts to an 87.2 winning percentage. That is an unbelievable mark for a coach who came up as a position coach in the NFL before joining Ohio State as its quarterbacks coach in 2017. The 47-year-old has built his name as the head man in Columbus.

Day got a needed win over Michigan the Buckeyes’ last time out in 2025. Beating the Wolverines again in 2026 would show he can win that rivalry consistently and start building a winning streak against a team Ohio State dominated throughout the 2000s.

When it comes to how much longer Day wants to stay in Columbus, he was pretty open about it being a significant commitment. Day recently told Eleven Warriors exactly where his head is at:

“We want to continue to do this for a long time … we all want to do this for another 10 years,” Day said. “It’d be hard for someone to convince me there’s a better job in the country. Yeah, sure, it comes with expectations, and it comes with a lot of pressure. Everybody says that, and people say, ‘Oh, you’ve got a tough job.’ Yeah, but I have a great job.”

Day could be more right about the expectations in Columbus. If you’re on the outside looking in, you probably won’t fully understand what it means to coach at Ohio State. Day is expected to win every game, and when the Buckeyes lose, no matter who it is to, it feels like the world is falling apart in Columbus. He’s taken those expectations and done a strong job with Ohio State since he’s been the man in charge.

The 2026 season is going to give Day his toughest regular season schedule that he’s had to endure at Ohio State. How the Buckeyes look on the other side of it will tell us a lot about this roster. One thing is for sure, though: Day sounds locked in to Columbus for potentially up to another decade, and it sounds like just the place he wants to continue to be. 

That is good news for Ohio State as the Buckeyes open the season today against Ball State.