Ryan Day has already joined a pretty exclusive club. Only four active coaches in college football have won a national championship, and the Ohio State head coach is one of them. With an 88-14 record, the résumé says he’s elite.
But in 2026, that kind of resume only buys you so much.
Ohio State is suddenly staring at a brutal stretch where reputation won’t matter nearly as much as results. The Buckeyes took a hit when starting quarterback Julian Sayin went down, then absorbed a second loss of the season to USC in backup Luke Fahey’s first career start.
When the CFP committee released its first rankings on Thursday, Ohio State landed at No. 12.
“We watched Ohio State Saturday against Southern Cal,” committee chair Hunter Yurachek said, according to Lyle Alenstein of Eleven Warriors. “I don’t want to put the burden on the freshman quarterback because their offense actually played fairly well. They were held to four field goals through three and a half quarters, but their defense gave up some really big, explosive plays, and some of the coaches in the room shared concern about Ohio State up front and their defense and not necessarily the quarterback.”
That leaves Day with a clear message from the committee: if the Buckeyes are going to climb back into the CFP picture, they’ll have to finish the regular season strong and clean up both sides of the ball. Oregon, Northwestern, Nebraska and Michigan are still ahead, and Ohio State has to be better at producing explosive plays while also preventing them.
Day has been through pressure before. In 2024, a Michigan team that was widely viewed as one of the weakest in years came into Columbus and stunned the Buckeyes 13-10, despite throwing for only 62 yards. Ohio State answered with four straight double-digit playoff wins and rode that run to its first national title since the 2014 season.
Now the question is whether Day and his staff can do something similar again.
The biggest issue starts in the trenches. Ohio State’s blocking has been a problem in the biggest moments for a while, and last year’s Big Ten title game and CFP game were more proof of that.
Indiana and Miami combined for 10 sacks and 16 tackles for loss in those matchups. Day tried to patch things up in the offseason, but the results haven’t followed.
The Buckeyes are now below the FBS average in four major blocking categories this season.
That’s a rough setup for any quarterback, let alone a true freshman backup. Fahey was put in a tough spot against USC, and the offensive line’s issues made it harder.
He averaged only 6 yards per attempt, more than four fewer than Sayin’s nation-leading 10.5. Some of that was the conservative nature of the game plan with QB2 under center, but the pressure was real.
The run game hasn’t offered much relief, either. Ohio State’s backs are getting hit almost immediately, with only eight teams in the country worse in rush yards before contact. The Buckeyes did manage 204 rushing yards against USC, but it took 43 carries to get there.
“That’s fine to have a 13-play drive, but it’s better to have a one-play drive for 70 yards,” Day told Chase Brown of Eleven Warriors. “We got to find ways to be more explosive.”
That’s the task now. Day may not be able to completely fix the offensive line this season, but he has to limit the damage. Fahey needs cleaner pockets and more time to find Jeremiah Smith, who remains the nation’s top receiver.
Then there’s the red zone, where Ohio State has been nowhere near championship level this year. During the 2024 title run, the Buckeyes were deadly inside the 20, turning more than 75% of their trips into touchdowns and finishing fifth nationally. Chip Kelly’s play-calling and Will Howard’s running ability made that offense extremely difficult to defend.
This year has been a different story. Sayin was excellent for Ohio State, except when the offense got close to the goal line.
That problem has carried over with Fahey, and the Buckeyes are converting just over 62% of their red-zone trips into touchdowns, which ranks 67th nationally. For a team with Jeremiah Smith on the roster, that number is hard to believe.
Against USC, the red-zone issues were especially costly. Ohio State settled for four field goals despite starting each of those drives inside the Trojans’ 27-yard line.
The worst moment came late in the first half, when the Buckeyes had first-and-goal at the 1-yard line. Instead of trimming the deficit to four, they came away with three points, and USC added another field goal before halftime to go up 20-9.
Day and coordinator Arthur Smith need a better answer there, whether that means a package for third-string quarterback Tavien St. Clair, who is 6-foot-4 and 235 pounds, or a more creative way to get Smith involved. The problem is that four of the nation’s top-19 red-zone defenses are still on the schedule.
The defense, meanwhile, has one clear fix: stop giving away huge plays. USC’s 30 points looked ugly on the surface, but most of the damage came from two backbreaking snaps.
Trent Mosley’s 69-yard touchdown on the opening drive and Mark Bowman’s 70-yard catch-and-run accounted for 139 of USC’s 222 passing yards. Mosley scored on his play, and Bowman’s burst set up a 1-yard touchdown.
Those two plays directly produced 14 of USC’s 30 points.
That was an outlier for Ohio State, which is usually one of the nation’s best teams at limiting explosive plays. It matters even more now because the rest of the schedule doesn’t exactly feature an offensive juggernaut.
Only Northwestern ranks inside the top 40 in yards per play, which means the Buckeyes likely won’t be chasing a string of high-scoring shootouts. If the defense keeps the lid on big plays, it’s hard to see the remaining opponents regularly getting past 20 points.
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