COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — In most American states, the highest-paid public employee is a college football (or in a few cases, basketball) coach.
In Ohio, it’s not even close.
Ryan Day is here to stay at Ohio State, after the school announced a new seven-year contract for Day on Wednesday morning. His $12.5 million in annual compensation ranks him behind only Georgia’s Kirby Smart in national college salaries.
Stability at the top is the most critical element to success in college sports, and now Ohio State has secured that. Day’s recent national championship resets the standards by which he is judged. Winning is the world’s strongest deodorant, and now Day carries a mountain musk of confidence in one of the highest-pressure jobs in American sports.
Day joins Smart and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney as the only active coaches with a national championship. That cache goes a long way in recruiting … not that any of those three programs needed much help in recruiting.
Even Ohio State’s leadership accepts Day is not infallible as a coach. The 0-4 mark vs. Michigan remains, serving as an annoying anvil weighing on the program. Nobody wants this.
But what everybody would want is Day’s coaching record (6 seasons at OSU):
- 70-10 overall (87.5%)
- 24-9 vs. Top 25 teams (72%)
- 7-6 vs. top five teams
Let’s compare that with the modern version of the coaching GOAT, Nick Saban (30 seasons at Toledo, Michigan State, LSU and Alabama):
- 297-71-1 (80.6%)
- 104-48 vs. Top 25 teams (68%)
- 30-16 vs. top five teams
Stability at the top is so critical in college football, because the only constant in the sport is change.
Assistants and staffers, players and support personnel are constantly changing. Every year you take the Etch-a-Sketch, shake it up and try to build it again. This coming season is another example. OSU will have its fourth offensive coordinator in three years, although Brian Hartline is clearly a familiar voice in the building. A new defensive coordinator will soon replace Jim Knowles. Day is well-accustomed to making calls and reading resumes every offseason. It’s one of the biggest compliments to OSU’s consistency of winning that its coaches quickly become among the most coveted anywhere.
When you think about it, if other programs don’t want your coaches, soon enough … you won’t want them either.
Those annual coaching searches add to the stress of just the basic, nonstop chaos of recruiting. After Tuesday’s signing day, OSU finished this 2025 recruiting season with the fifth-ranked incoming class, according to 247Sports. By OSU standards, it’s another strong, but not extraordinary, showing. Other programs like Texas, Oregon, Texas A&M and even that school up north continue to bolster their NIL offerings to recruits, forcing Ohio State to continue to compete in the football arms race. That means more fundraising chicken dinners, donor phone calls and speaking engagements for Day.
It’s an insanely stressful, consuming job long before you get to gameday. With the wildly high standards of excellence at Ohio State, it takes a unique person to fill that role.
Is Day handsomely compensated for that stress? You bet.
Maybe former Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh was right that Day was “born on third base”… whatever that really means. Even so, to get from third base to home plate takes talent.
Day’s now reached home … and home to stay.
