The former rival of Ryan Day’s Buckeyes and possibly the most successful of them, Nick Saban, has a lot of hopes riding on the team this season. Ironically, Nick Saban won his last national championship in 2020 when the Tide defeated the Ohio State Buckeyes by a phenomenal score of 52-24.

Now, 4 years and a retirement later, Saban has nothing but admiration for the team of Ryan Day, who have been performing well this season. Though the veteran was almost jumping with excitement to talk about them, Day, on the other hand, had a whole other humble reaction upon the Buckeyes’ win against the Marshal Thundering Herd.

On the September 21st episode of the ‘ESPN College Football Show’, hosted by Rece Davis and analysts Nick Saban, Kirk Herbstreit, Pat McAfee, and Desmond Howard, dove deep into the matchup of Ohio State versus Marshall prior to the game and the former Alabama HC had a good word for Day’s Ohio State. He was heard saying, “Ohio State has really played to dominate the competition and I think that’s so important to what is your capability. How are you playing relative to what you’re capable to or are you playing down to the competition, and they’ve played great so far this year and I think that’s going to benefit them down the road when they play more difficult schedule.” This is the 3rd consecutive win that the Buckeyes get to boast of and yet, the HC, Ryan Day, didn’t seem especially pleased with his team despite the large distinctive score of 49-14.

Contradictory to Saban’s bright and joyous comments, Day wasn’t too happy with how the team played and said, “Offense was really explosive sort of a mixed bag. I thought the offense was really explosive today and The defense, got some good stops in there but we’re just a little sloppy in certain areas, so we’l take a look at the film and get them fixed. We’re still trying to find our identity there but for the most part, I really think those guys are playing hard. “

Thus, Day doesn’t seem to be having a great day himself, focusing on the fallacies of the team more so than their win, even by coasting through their opponents with such ease. It might make sense that Day seems to be a bit on edge about filling out all the gaps within the team, seeing as how it’s a tough and jam-packed schedule lined up for the Buckeyes in the coming few weeks.

The Ohio State Buckeyes’ rocky schedule up ahead

At the moment, the Buckeyes are at par with the Michigan State Spartans at the 3rd position on the Big 10 points table, but the picture will get clearer next week. So far, the Buckeyes have played against the likes of the Akron Zips, the Western Michigan Broncos, and the Marshall Thundering Herd, none of which are elite teams in the conference. The Ohio State Buckeyes are undoubtedly one of the best teams in the conference, but they have yet to face off against a challenging team.

The team will play against the Spartans on 29th September to settle the debate once and for all for the better team and then go on to play Iowa on 5th October. After which, the schedule is lined up with the toughest opponents in the conference, namely, Oregon, Nebraska, Penn State, Purdue, and then Indiana and Michigan in November.

Ryan Day might be right to be nervous about his team not hitting the bullseye performance-wise, but he also needs to give credit to his players when it’s due. If Saban’s words come true, then Ryan Day very well might have a playoff-contending team on his hands this year.

If you want to understand college football better, do catch this ES Think Tank podcast episode with Doug Sanders.