Ohio State’s Win Over Kent State Doesn’t Mean Ryan Day is Out of the Woods Just Yet

The Ohio State Buckeyes did a good job of taking care of business on Saturday, leaving the unfortunate loss to Texas behind while trouncing Kent State to the tune of 59-3.

The Buckeyes’ game was by no means perfect, but it landed within logical range of what was expected against the Golden Flashes.

However, head coach Ryan Day and his staff are by no means out of the woods just yet.

Ohio State’s latest victory is just their second over the last five games, and those two wins have come at home and at the expense of Ball State and Kent State -- not precisely top-notch competition.

In contrast, the Buckeyes’ three losses over that stretch have come as an away team or on neutral ground -- Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium against Indiana in the Big Ten Championship, Arlington’s AT&T Stadium against Miami as a CFP Quarterfinal, and last week in Austin against the Longhorns. The stakes were evidently higher in each of those games where Ohio State came up short.

Make no mistake, those three losses in four games are the lowest point yet for Day as Ohio State’s head coach -- and it could get worse. That’s why coming back with a commanding victory against Kent State was so critical to the immediate future of the program.

Yes, the Buckeyes have lost two consecutive games to end the season before. It happened in 2022 when second-ranked Ohio State fell to Michigan third-ranked Michigan at home, before falling to top-ranked Georgia in the CFP semifinal at the Peach Bowl.

Then history repeated itself one year later when second-ranked Ohio State lost on the road to third-ranked Michigan, getting knocked out of CFP contention, and then suffering an ugly loss to ninth-ranked Missouri in the Cotton Bowl.

The Buckeyes were outplayed by Michigan in both those instances, and the loss against Mizzou came with a brand new quarterback after starter Kyle McCord had transferred out, and top offensive weapon Marvin Harrison Jr. had opted out of the bowl game. Ohio State did give up a 14-point lead to the Bulldogs, but the team still managed to score 41 against the then-nation’s top program.

The Buckeyes’ loss against Texas made the wrong kind of history in multiple ways, and much like their defeats to the Hoosiers and Hurricanes, evidenced an offense that just stopped moving the ball at certain points of those games, despite having the nation’s best offensive weapon in generational talent Jeremiah Smith.

To make things worse, Day now has two former NFL head coaches as coordinators, after adding Arthur Smith on offense to join Matt Patricia on defense. Nonetheless, the team never found a way to come up with answers on either side of the ball against the Longhorns during a game that should have been put away in the third.

What’s next for Ryan Day’s Buckeyes?

Up next is Ohio State’s conference opener, a home game against Illinois where the Buckeyes are being favored by a lofty -27.5.

This is where Day’s pupils need to keep the fire going so they can arrive at their October 3 road game against 17th-ranked Iowa firing on all cylinders. Two weeks later, they’ll have to visit fifth-ranked Indiana followed by another road game against 12th-ranked USC. The Buckeyes will then begin November with a home game against 20th-ranked Oregon during the most daunting stretch of their schedule.

One win against Kent State doesn’t show momentum, but merely stopping the freefall. Another dominant win against Illinois gets the ball rolling, but in order to talk about achieving true momentum, the kind that can take you all the way to a championship, that can only happen with a perfect October.

Anything less will likely point the now seventh-ranked Buckeyes towards Day’s first three-loss season, or worse.

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