Ryan Day hasn’t had too many bad days, one would think. In less than ten years, he has become one of Ohio State’s winningest coaches. He’s got a National Champion to be proud of, back-to-back winning seasons, the whole shebang. But Ryan Day does have bad days; they’re only outshone by the many successes he’s had. In his tenure at Ohio State so far, there are two tough games that Day will never be able to forget.
When asked about which is the one game Day would like to change the script for, the head answered without missing a beat, “The ’19 Clemson game.” But that wasn’t the only game that was a tough pill for the OSU head coach. There was also the heartbreaking 2021 loss to Georgia in the Peach Bowl.
“Those two games to this day, you remember the losses,” Ryan Day said on Not Just Football. “The wins kind of just come and go in their relief. But those losses haunt you. Because I felt like both of those teams were good teams. If we were able to move on to the next game, we would have been playing LSU again with Joe Burrow, which would have been just a monster game, which would have been great. And then the other year we’ve been playing TCU.”
In 2019, when Ohio State faced Clemson, everything boiled down to that infamous third-quarter ‘fumble’ call. Ohio State was trailing 16-21 in the playoff semifinals with less than five minutes left in the third quarter. And that’s when OSU safety Jordan Fuller scooped up a supposed fumble, scoring a touchdown. The scoreboard read 22-21 for Ohio State.
But, there was an issue if Clemson’s WR, Justyn Ross, actually possessed the ball. After officials reviewed the play in slow motion and put Ryan Day and Co. through a heart-wrenching wait, they overturned the on-field call to an incomplete pass.
Ryan Day said the 2019 playoff game against Clemson and the Peach Bowl vs. Georgia are the games that haunts him. Day said if they call the targeting against Marvin Harrison Jr. vs. Georgia they win that game. pic.twitter.com/KKZ292yiCq
— JBook. (@JBook_37) April 12, 2026
Clemson punted the ball on the next drive, and Ohio State couldn’t quite catch up to Clemson’s lead as the team lost 23-29. After the game, however, the national coordinator of officials and the Big Ten supervisor of officials both agreed that the score should not have been overturned. But what’s done was done. Three years later, the Buckeyes found themselves in a similar position.
Against Georgia in the Peach Bowl, OSU snapped the ball with just 35 seconds left on the third quarter clock, and CJ Stroud threw it in the endzone to Marvin Harrison Jr. on 3rd-and-25. However, before the WR could catch it, a Georgia defender hit him with the crown of his helmet. The ruling on the field was immediately given for targeting, and OSU earned an automatic first down. But the officials overturned the call. Eventually, the Buckeyes lost the game by a single point (41-42).
If Day was on the winning end of these unfortunate calls, he would have been a three-time National Championship-winning coach.
Although Ryan Day still carries the pain behind those controversial big game calls, those games were the catalyst for altering his ‘winning’ philosophy. That’s what helped Day win the 2024 national championship for Ohio State.
Ryan Day opens up about the lessons he learned from the UGA and Clemson losses
In the 2024 national championship game, Ryan Day dominated right from the first drive. He answered quickly with a touchdown for Notre Dame’s first quarter 7 points, and followed it up with two aggressive 75+ yard touchdown drives in the second quarter. OSU led 21-7, and Notre Dame unsuccessfully played catch-up throughout the game. If not for those Georgia and Clemson games, Ryan Day might not have learned his dominance approach.
“That’s where I got the mantra of leave no doubt, because it can’t come down to one call,” Day said. “Nobody cares, so we can’t leave it up to one call; we have to leave no doubt, and that was the whole philosophy behind coming into the 2024 season. Don’t leave it to one call, because if you leave it to one call, you deserve to lose. That was the whole idea of the National Championship game, on third-and-eleven to throw it up to Jeremiah and be aggressive in the game.”
Ryan Day’s philosophy is paying massive dividends for Ohio State, and he also beat Michigan for the second time last year. There are a lot of good days he can pat himself on the back for. Ohio State did lose in the semifinal yet again last season, but it’s a loss that Day could get over much more easily than the Georgia and Clemson ones. It’s one thing to lose because of one’s own mistakes, and another to lose at the mistakes of others.
