Why Ohio State Head Coach Ryan Day Wears Black On Game Days
For the most part, former Ohio State head coaches Jim Tressel and Urban Meyer contrasted their game-day attire with the uniform the team wore that afternoon or evening.
If the Buckeyes were in their home scarlet jerseys, Tressel would wear a gray sweater vest with a dress shirt and tie underneath while Meyer would wear a white polo or jacket.
When Ohio State hit the road, Tressel would wear a scarlet sweater vest with a dress shirt and tie underneath while Meyer would wear a red polo or jacket to stand out against the Buckeyes’ white jerseys.
However, that color coordination ended with current head coach Ryan Day, though it wasn’t exactly intentional on his end.
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You see, during his first season as Ohio State’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2017, Day – like every other assistant coach – always wore the same color as Meyer on game days.
But when he took over for Meyer on an interim basis for the first three games of the 2018 season, there was a black hat and polo waiting for him in his locker at Ohio Stadium ahead of the 77-31 win over Oregon State.
Day then wore the same black hat – which featured a white and scarlet Ohio State wordmark and a scarlet Nike Swoosh – with a black jacket for a rainy afternoon game against Rutgers.
But when he attempted to switch things up by wearing a red hat with a black jacket for the game against TCU at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, other members of the staff told him he couldn’t.
“A bunch of people said, ‘Woah, woah, what are you doing? Where’s your black hat?” Day recalled during his radio show on Thursday. “I said, ‘I’m just wearing this hat.’ They said, ‘No, no, you’ve go to wear the black hat.’ And from then on, that was it.”
Day continued to wear the same black hat with a black polo or jacket after Meyer returned to the sidelines, aside from a 30-degree day at Michigan State when he wore a red jacket and gray knit hat. It then carried over when he was promoted to head coach, though the wordmark is completely white now.
The only other games he’s slightly deviated from that look is cold-weather games, when he's occasionally worn a jacket that was black up top and gray toward the bottom. The overall look seems to treat him well, though, as the Buckeyes are 40-4 under his guidance.
“Woody Hayes wore that black hat with the Block ‘O,’” Day said. “A little different than the one I wear, but that kind of happened naturally because of that. I also think it’s neat that Woody Hayes wore it back in the day, so I wear it now during the games.”
Hayes won 205 games and five national championships during his 28 seasons as head coach at Ohio State, by far the most among any coach in school history. Day believes if wearing a black hat was good enough for Hayes, it'll work for him, too.
“We’ve got to try to keep that thing going,” Day said.
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