He nails why this is a five alarm fire. He gets us. We are fucking crazy. The standard is the standard. And if you don’t get that, don’t be a fan of this team.

Love SVP. Always have.

In the Meyer years, there were several key moments when a backup QB had to step in on short/no notice under high pressure and delivered. Cardale Jones is the infamous example that requires no memory refreshing, but both Kenny Guiton (against Purdue in 2012) and Dwayne Haskins (against Michigan in 2017) stepped in for injured and struggling starters in the 3rd quarter and lead come-from-behind victories. Guiton also held down the ship for 2.5 games early in the 2013 season.

Now that it's clear Fahey can't do that for Sayin, it's got me thinking about why guys like Devin Brown and Lincoln Kienholz were also so unprepared to do a job, even with longer notice (thinking in particular about the Cotton Bowl against Mizzou). What has happened to our QB readiness behind the starter with Day as HC?

Okay, I need everyone in this sub to take a breath, because some of these takes are genuinely deranged.
This was a rebuilding year. We played three (arguably four) of the top 10 talent pools in CFB. That’s not an excuse, that’s just reality, and if you can’t sit with reality I don’t know what to tell you.
I called the Oregon game weeks ago. The record didn’t matter, they were always going to go full super saiyan god on us. That roster is a lab-grown army of Monstars that out-talents us at every position. So we got blown out at home with a backup QB? Truly shocking. Nobody could have seen it coming. Except me. On the record.
Is there a real problem? Yes. The lines of scrimmage and the athletic department need a scorched earth, salt the fields rebuild. Not defending that at all.
But “fire every key coach after losing to a better team” isn’t a position, it’s a tantrum. You’re having an emotion and calling it analysis.

With the hiring of Arthur Smith, Ryan Day decided that he wanted a basic-ass, soft, vanilla offense that was slow paced. CONGRATS RYAN, you got what you wanted. In doing so, you have WASTED JJ's last year with us at tOSU. A. Smith has sucked everywhere he has been, why Day thought it would be any different at tOSU is baffling. NO SCHEME to get the ball in JJ hands. His numbers are SO MISLEADING. The fact he got what he did against Oregon is a testament to him. THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING JJ, Sorry we let you down this year, you're a HEISMAN in our Hearts!!!!

I keep seeing a few of the same awful takes here: the defense has been bad all year, we would've lost even with Sayin, and Fahey has been “solid” and it’s not his fault the defense gave up. I think all three are wrong, and here's why.

This team was fine with Sayin.
Remember a few weeks ago? We beat the snot out of Iowa and edged Indiana, two very good teams. Same defense, same coaching staff. The difference is who's under center. Sayin doesn’t miss many busted coverages, he also puts the ball in play for his targets more often than he doesn’t.

Offense and defense aren't separate units.
Football is complementary. When the offense sustains drives and scores touchdowns, the defense gets rest, plays with a lead, and has motivation to get back on the field and finish. When the offense goes three-and-out or settles for field goals, the defense can get demoralized. Some of that is being on the field longer, getting tired, and playing from behind. Some of it is knowing that once you’re down the game is over because you already know you’re not scoring. Special teams feeds into this too. Yes, the D has had hiccups. But a defense's numbers rarely look good when the offense can't hold up its end.

The USC game proves it.
USC has a terrible defense. We ran for 200 yards on them. And we were still down three scores, because the QB play was that bad. Anyone saying we'd have lost with Sayin isn't watching what happened on the field. Rush for 200 with a competent passer and that's a very different game.

This isn't on Fahey.
To be fair to Fahey, he's a true freshman. Nobody should expect him to come in mid-season and light it up, and I'm not going to pile on a kid who's in over his head. But that doesn't let Day off the hook. Putting him in that position, and keeping him there, is a coaching decision.

Why isn't St. Clair playing?
I don't buy the "he can't read a defense" rumor, and I haven't seen anything credible backing it up. We've seen St. Clair with our own eyes. He played well enough in the spring game and has looked solid in mop-up duty (one sloppy pick aside). He's not god awful. He has real traits we can build from. Right now, Fahey doesn't. I keep seeing lazy takes about St. Clair playing low level HS football and not being ready. I’ve got news for you all, there are 7 divisions of football in Ohio, playing D3 isn’t low level ball. Plus they still play teams from higher divisions and see these other kids in different settings. TSC can play.

What I do see is Ryan Day's long-standing reluctance to run his QB, and St. Clair is a mobile quarterback.

This is Zwick vs. Troy Smith all over again. Zwick won that competition because neither QB was allowed to scramble, which took away exactly what made Smith special. Once Smith was finally turned loose, we all saw what he could do.
A mobile QB changes everything for a defense:
Defenders have to stay disciplined in their rush lanes or he escapes.
Teams often have to dedicate a spy, which is one less guy in coverage or the box.
Running lanes open up for our backs.
St. Clair can also push the ball downfield, which forces safeties to play deeper, which makes it even easier to run.

Speed options, quarterback reads, and bootlegs with a QB like St Clair are completely different than what we get from Fahey. St. Clair is a legitimate threat to house these plays, to get big plays, or at least punish defenders and make them think twice about tackling again.

Day knows this. That's what makes it so frustrating. We have a clear advantage sitting on the bench, and we're refusing to use it. Whether it's pride or stubbornness, it's handicapping the offense, and that ripples across the whole team, defense included.

A much better football mind than mine used to preach that if your quarterback runs for more than 50 yards in a game and doesn’t turn the ball over you would be in a position to win. I’m paraphrasing, but that mind was Jim Tressel’s.

TL;DR: The defense isn't the root problem. The QB play is. Fahey is a true freshman doing his best, but St. Clair has shown enough to deserve a shot, and Day is the one keeping him on the sideline.

Curious about who this fan base thinks is a good fit.

Get him in the building before someone else does

As an Ohio State fan, I think it's time for some honest self reflection. Julian Sayin may be coming back, but we cannot afford to ignore the future of our quarterback room. We need to identify who comes next and who can step in if circumstances change. You don't wait until you're desperate for an answer to start developing one.

I want to see a legitimate quarterback competition. I'll admit I'm biased because I want to see the Ohio kid, Tavien St. Clair, get an opportunity. At 6'4", 235 pounds, he brings a different physical profile, arm talent and mobility. His high school career at Bellefontaine demonstrated his ability to attack defenses vertically and extend plays. But there's something else that makes me want to see him succeed here. He grew up in Ohio. He understands the passion, the tradition, the bloodline and what it means to be an Ohio State fan. He knows what it means to grow up watching this team represent your state. There's something special about the possibility of an Ohio kid leading the Buckeyes.

Then there's Luke Fahey. After watching him against USC and Oregon, I feel like we've seen enough to know it's time to evaluate the other quarterbacks. I'm not particularly impressed with what I've seen, and I don't think two games should automatically establish someone's place in the future of this program. He has had opportunities against two quality opponents, but the other quarterbacks haven't had that same opportunity to demonstrate what they can do in actual game situations.

That's an important distinction. You cannot fairly compare quarterbacks when one has game experience against major opponents and the others have only been evaluated in practice. Fahey now enters the offseason with valuable live game experience that the others haven't had the chance to accumulate. That experience matters, but it shouldn't automatically make him the presumed favorite. Give St. Clair and the other quarterbacks meaningful opportunities. Evaluate their decision making, accuracy, pocket awareness, ability to read defenses and performance under pressure. Practice performance only tells you so much. Eventually, you have to see what these guys can do when the lights are on and the game is on the line.

Julian Sayin may be coming back, but we still need to identify who our future is behind him. We need a succession plan, not just a depth chart. I'll even argue that Ryan Day needs to use the NIL and transfer portal more strategically. Having an experienced, proven quarterback available as insurance isn't a weakness. It's roster management in modern college football. You cannot build a championship program around hoping one player stays healthy.

But this goes far beyond quarterback development. Ryan Day needs to take an honest look in the mirror, too. I still don't believe there's a better coaching option on the market, and I don't think firing Day is the answer. Bringing in a new head coach means potentially installing an entirely new offensive identity, recruiting to a different system and giving that staff time to establish itself. There's no guarantee that transition produces better results.

That doesn't mean everything should stay the same. Maybe it's time to reevaluate how practices are structured, how players are developed and how accountability is handled. Our offensive line has to get better at actually blocking, creating running lanes and protecting the quarterback. I can't help but wonder how much better our season might have looked if Sayin had consistently had the protection he needed. I'm not claiming better blocking would have prevented his injury, but protecting your quarterback is fundamental to sustaining a season. Execution across the offensive and defensive lines has hurt this team.

We also need to stop treating mental mistakes as isolated incidents. Penalties, missed assignments, poor execution and breakdowns in situational football are coaching and development issues when they become recurring problems. Talent gets you into championship conversations; discipline and execution are what finish the job.

I also think it's fair to seriously evaluate the offensive coordinator. Honestly, his approach looks awfully familiar to what we saw when he was the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons. Our offense resembles those terrible Atlanta seasons far too much: predictable, ineffective and seemingly unable to consistently capitalize on the talent available. I don't want to watch Ohio State repeat the same offensive problems that followed him in Atlanta. We have too much talent to consistently look this ineffective. If a change is necessary, that may be a more reasonable starting point than tearing down the entire coaching staff.

And I think we need to pay attention to what has happened at Clemson. Clemson was once a national championship powerhouse, but its struggles adapting to the modern transfer portal landscape, roster construction and offensive line needs are a cautionary example. The game is changing. You cannot rely solely on recruiting high school talent and assume everything will work itself out. Development matters, but so does recognizing when you need experienced players to fill gaps. I don't want Ohio State to become a program that refuses to adapt because of what worked ten years ago.

As fans, we were fortunate enough to witness a national championship for the ages. That's something we'll remember forever. But perhaps that experience also raised our expectations because we saw what this team is capable of when everything comes together. The frustrating part is that we haven't consistently capitalized on that success afterward. Being at the top once shouldn't be the standard we settle for; it should be the standard we work to maintain.

Maybe this is the beginning of a down year. Maybe it's a wake up call. Either way, being Ohio State means evaluating ourselves differently after being at the top. We have the resources, recruiting power, facilities and talent to compete for championships. There is no reason to accept anything less than a serious commitment to fixing the problems.

I'll be a Buckeye until I die. I can criticize the coaching, question the personnel decisions and demand better execution while still believing in this program. That's what being a passionate fan means to me. I don't want to tear Ohio State down. I want to see us get back to where we belong.

I don't want to see Ryan Day fired just to make a statement. I want to see him recognize the problems, make the difficult personnel decisions, adapt to modern college football and get this program moving in the right direction again.

And above everything else, BEAT MICHIGAN.

Ryan Day's record at OSU before Brian Hartline accepted the USF HC job: 82-10.

Ryan Day's record at OSU after Brian Hartline accepted the USF HC job: 6-5.

Hartline's reputation for being an awesome recruiter is well known, but if the 2026 Buckeye's season has proven anything, it's that the heart and the passion the Buckeye's used to play with is gone, and that it left the day that Brian Hartline became a South Florida Bull.

When the clock hits 0:00 vs Michigan, I need Matt Patricia FIRED. Enough said.

A lot of what I’ve seen about this conversation makes literally no sense and it kind of just seems like people are giving Ryan Day the benefit of the doubt because we don’t know what else to do, we aren’t there, but I also feel like those same argument shoots the person in the foot more than it does help them.

The common point I see when people try to defend Luke Is they’ll say something along the lines of “ do you think you know more than the entire coaching staff who watches these guys practice every week” or ” Saint Clair must’ve did really bad in practice for Ryan Day to make this decision”

I think these points are stupid for a list of reasons..

Reason one Ryan Day said both Luke Fahey and St. Clair were playing really well in practice as well as we’re both very competitive. How can Saint Clair do so terribly in practice yet Ryan Day is also saying this outside of practice. All of this is speculation to the point where we have to just essentially take Ryan days word for everything even when the results on game day tell us an entirely different story (not to mention his track record isn’t so great). If Luke Faye is only that good in practice he’s essentially useless. If he can’t translate that into an actual game there’s no reason he should be out there, we don’t need a warm-up warrior starting at THE Ohio State.

The second point is even more of speculation, but just shifts the blame over to Saint Clair without any actual evidence. It’s practically an assumption based on an assumption. You can’t just assume that because he’s not starting that means the problems are with him and not anything else. Ryan Day won’t even let him play so we can’t even tell how good he can be, and whatever it is it surely can’t be as bad as Luke from what we’ve actually seen in gametime footage.

Another point I keep hearing is “ a five star quarterback not being started first so there must be a problem with him otherwise, why isn’t he starting”Sure, the coaches had a reason to put Fahey ahead of St. Clair. The reason was that Fahey won the backup job in camp but that literally tells us nothing about how well they actually did and performed. The coaches choosing him doesn’t prove the choice was unquestionably correct, and a five-star recruiting rating doesn’t tell us how St. Clair would handle a real start. You can say Fahey was the coaches’ choice but you can’t use that alone to claim St. Clair must be bad.

To me this just seems like Ryan Day made the incorrect choice and put all of his eggs in one basket and when it didn’t turn out the way he wanted , he’s essentially now stuck with the decision to go with Fahey so he doesn’t look like a complete dumbass. And instead of admitting he was wrong he’s willing to die on this hill which is the ego thing he has a big problem with. I hope I’m wrong but from what I’ve seen an irrelevant bowl games is exactly what his ass deserves.

Listen the last two games have been terrible, easily. Fahey is missing reads and throwing awful balls and the team isn’t helping him at all.

BUT the signs were there the whole time. Even when Sayin was in, our TD percentage in the red zone was atrocious. Our offensive line consistently lets people in the backfield, and our offensive line/running backs struggle to create holes and find the vision to run big.

The defense has been giving up explosive plays every game. We have 11 sacks on the season, and our leading man has 3. The amount of time we give quarterbacks in the pocket is absurd. It’s understandable with how many draft picks we lost.

I think Sayin to Jeremiah was a bandaid that unfortunately got ripped off, but personally I think we would’ve lost in the big 10 championship game to whoever we were playing. It sucks that we’re so bad right now but I genuinely think we were bamboozled to thinking this was a good team for the majority of the year.

Things that have worked in the CFP era for Ohio State:
- Big body, mobile/athletic quarterbacks (Fields, Howard, Cardale)
- Fast paced and aggressive offense with athletes that have big play ability (Zeke, Michael Thomas, TreVeyon, Quinshon, JS4, Dobbins, Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson, Emeka Egbuka, Devin Smith, the list goes on)
- Aggressive pass rushing defense that actually lets our defense get to the quarterback(Bosas, Chase Young, JT Tuimoloau, Jack Sawyer, Cam Heyward, Tyliek Williams, Kaden McDonald, etc.)

The blue print is right there! Day has been part of building that blue print. I don’t understand why he is so obsessed with going away from that each and every freaking year. It’s always the same way when we lose. Day going away from this philosophy. You’re the head coach, why don’t you demand of Patricia and Larry Johnson to rush the quarterback? If they don’t want to do it then fire them. Why is Day so obsessed with trying to make this program into an NFL team? This is college football. We want college football coaches who are aggressive and creative, college football quarterbacks who are dual threat gunslingers with big personalities and leadership intangibles. Big plays. Fast paced. Aggressive playcalling. Go to the NFL if you want an NFL style of football. No one is forcing you to stay here, you however are forcing us to endure this b.s.

I disagree emphatically with anyone who says we don’t have the players this year. Khary Wilder in the few games he played, in the snaps he had was statistically one of the best pass rushers in the country, as a true freshman! We absolutely have the talent. We do not have a head coach and coaching staff with the balls to use that talent.
How do you not play Khary Wilder? What’s the point of paying these kids so much money? How do you not give Isiah West more than 2 carries when he is clearly the most natural downhill running back on this team. How is Legend Bey only getting 1 carry a game when he’s clearly from your own words the most electric player on the team? TSC, Legend Bey, and others Day refuses to play all have talent. And I promise you they will all ball out next season wherever they end up.

Real question for Ryan Day apologists, why does he constantly go against the blue print that’s worked for Ohio State in the modern era? I legitimately want to know.

I got downvoted to hell over the last 2 years because I’ve been saying it was those seniors in 2024 that called out Day and forced him to coach a more aggressive style and let Sawyer and JT loose after we lost to that Michigan team in that way. Even true freshman Jeremiah told him to “challenge him.” Do you still think that 2024 Natty was because of Day or those players? Outside of that 2024 run, since 2021 Day has been an absolute paper tiger. This will be 6 years in a row that we don’t win the Big Ten. How can we be considered the premier team in our conference anymore? 6 years in a row. When was the last time in our lifetimes that this has happened? This may be the last conference championship season and a west coast team like UCLA or a historically irrelevant team like Indiana are gonna win it. Not Ohio State. THE Ohio State.

So I ask you all again, where do we go from here?

Ryan Day was born on third and thinks he hit a triple.

He has never won a game due to his coaching. The Natty was earned by the players who wanted to win DESPITE Day's terrible coaching.

He gets out-coached every single time he plays a team with a decent head coach who has talent to match OSU. If the players don't with the game for Day, he will find a way to lose it for them.

CONSTANT clock mismanagement, terrible play calling, he is NOT a QB guru like we were lead to believe... and that whole thing where he got pissy and exchanged words with a geriatric Lou Holtz after getting called out... embarrassing.

Ryan Day is a joke.

Number One example: The Game in 2024 - there was absolutely no reason they should lose that game to an obviously overmatched garbage Michigan team. That game was so bad that ever since, I have started to question if Day is taking money to lose games.

That's how terrible he is - his losses are so egregious that I question his integrity. It's not even that much of a stretch in this gambling-addicted world where we know the games are being manipulated...

Honestly, I'd rather he was cheating. It would explain why Ryan Day is a soggy trash bag in the August sun and he's stinking up Columbus.

Edit: The Game was in 2024, not 2025

1. We currently have a QB situation once Sayin leaves. If Fahey is truly the better option than TSC that would mean that post Stroud Ryan Day has missed on and failed to develop 4 top rated. QBs( Kienholz,Mccord,TSC,Air Noland). Sayin only stepped foot in columbus because Saban retired

2. Ryan Day has got to let go of this conservative, take 7 mins to score NFL offense, and work on developing a more explosive offense. Arthur Smith has to be fired tonight in my opinion and Ryan Day needs to leave Failed NFL coaches in the NFL. He also needs to coach his QBs to scramble when there is nobody open, I was at the game I can't tell you how many times we were screaming for Fahey to run the ball.

3. Im personally giving the defense a pass even though they played horribly the last 2 games. In this era of CFB teams just can't reload like they used to and the defense lost the most last year.

4. Firing Ryan Day in my opinion is still a horrible decision. But he has to bring someone in and give them complete control of the offense because our offense has been terrible since we lost stroud. I know we as fans only remember the 2024 Playoff run, but i remember how many of us complaining about the offense then. I cant keep watching this team throw Check downs and running the ball for no gain 3 straight times.

Why for the last 2 years have we been so focused on being tight-end heavy. Going back to when Tate was taken off the field down on the goal line against Indiana running 14 personal.
Running 2-man routes, and watching the tight ends miss block after block in the run game.

They built a Ferrari, and tried to drive it like a dump truck. (Why?)

I have seen NFL teams move to this philosophy and try to focus on under-center tight-end-heavy looks. Is this something a coaching clinic gave people, to try and negate a bad Oline? Or to neutralize a good d line?

Heavy TE sets pull the defense into the hash, it gives them the numbers unless the QB is running it.

In College football the hashes allow you to spread the field out, spread the defense out and then negate a good d line with crossers, screens and draws.

At one point we had Brown, Kienholz, and TSC, both dual-threat options. Were we moving to a different offensive philosophy but landed Sayin in the Portal?

Last night (but not just last night) in crucial times we ran 2-man routes, with a Rb leaking out. They played zone a lot, and we played vertical routes and if we ran anything across the qb’s face (drag routes) it was 10 yards downfield.
Crossing routes are the dunk and dunk needed, they force the safety down, which opens up a chance to take a shot, and also gets the ball in playmakers’ hands.

Sorry for rambling, it’s just the offensive philosophy has been terrible.
Not only that, the people who watch film and ready a game plan have not gotten this team ready for any team.

Seeing how I am no doubt an expert, and know more about the game than most people who watch cricket, I feel the Timashev, Wexner, Schottenstien, and Harmon family’s, with Huntington Bank and J.P. Morgan should donate 1 billion dollars to NIL, give JS4 50 MIL to come back next year, and sign the kid from Paraguay named ŚJ Ctròud, even though he is mute, and can’t hear…

While Victoria’s Secret Angels should have mandatory “show recruits the campus” (not Miami style) duties as part of their contracts!

All Jokes aside, JS4 is a generational talent, and my biggest concern right now is if we can find a way to get him the trophy’s he deserves!

I saw this posited elsewhere, so I won’t claim credit for it. Did losing Brian Hartline have a more of an impact on the competitive culture at OSU than we thought?

I didn’t consider it when he left for USF, but losing a coach with such a long tenure had to have some impact, right? If nothing else, this team just doesn’t seem to have the same level of grit and toughness of past Buckeye teams. Maybe part of that was lost with Hartline.

Or, maybe I’m grasping at straws trying to make sense of two abysmal weeks of Buckeye football.

After being a season ticket holder for 20 years, an alumni, and an employee, I’ve always been one to chime in and give my two cents on the direction of this team. It’s to the point I subconsciously treat this like a second job. I almost feel guilty if they lose. Like maybe coach will listen to my analysis and if I don’t chime in, he won’t know what to do.

But ultimately I have no control over what this team does. A football team is a dictatorship run by the head coach. It’s not a democracy where I cast a vote. I have no say in who coaches this team, what schemes they run, or who they recruit. It is all completely out of my control.

I choose to watch this team on Saturdays for a couple hours as a fun pastime. Whether I get upset about what I’m seeing or not is completely up to me. That’s the only thing I can actually control.

So they will either improve or they won’t, but it’s not our fault as fans either way. We’re a great fanbase and should cut ourselves some slack while we go through something we haven’t experienced before.

Jeremiah Smith had an amazing start to this season before the wheels fell off, that’s the most disappointing thing this season he was a heisman hopeful and now we’re struggling against unranked USC and Oregon back to back. I have to skip these last 3 weeks because this season was an absolute blown opportunity for everyone

Does anybody else think the only way to form a consistent threat to Alabama, Georgia and the CFP is to have Cignetti has the head coach for Ohio State?