Ohio State football: Ryan Day trying to stay in the present with power transfer looming

Ryan Day was a popular guy during interviews Saturday morning.

Sure, everyone wanted to know what Ohio State’s offensive coordinator has in store for a highly regarded Washington defense, but there was a little more to it.

You know, that whole head-coach-in-waiting thing.

"Every day a little bit more," Day said when asked about the reality sinking in he will be replacing Urban Meyer as head coach of the Buckeyes in a matter of days. "A lot going on. The first thing on the list was recruiting, and obviously that went really, really well. Now it's getting ready for this bowl game.

“But every day a little bit more.”

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Folks hoping to find out what kinds of changes might be coming to the program were disappointed, though.

Day was mum on what he might do as far as assistant coach hiring and firing.

“Right now it's all about winning this game,” he said. “It's on us right now. That's where the focus is.”

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He didn’t want to look ahead at the quarterback situation should star sophomore slinger Dwayne Haskins enter the 2019 NFL draft.

“It's something I'm going to kind of think about after the game and reflect on what that's going to be, but we just gotta win this game. Then we'll go from there.”

However, Day did say he intends to remain involved in play-calling and described his vision for what the Ohio State offense could be under his guidance instead of Meyer’s.

“I think it starts with the quarterback, based on the quarterback skill set what gives us the best opportunity to be successful,” Day said. “I think that you have to evolve with the game as well. I think you can't be stagnant in terms of this is what we run, this is our offense. You have to kind of evolve with the times and stay on top of it.

"So we'll be studying NFL teams. We'll be studying teams in the Big Ten, teams in the SEC, teams all across the country and figure out what are the new trends in offenses, what gives defenses trouble and then marry that up with who our quarterback is, who our line is and how our skill guys fit in.”

 

As far as practice this week in Southern California, Day said it’s still Meyer’s team.

“It's not been different at all. It's been really smooth,” he said. “There’s a great relationship there between coach and I, and he's kind of handing this thing off to me as we go. But things have been business as usual, and we'll continue that way through the game.”

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