The NCAA has disciplined Jim Harbaugh for his recruiting violations during the COVID period. The Michigan HC has been issued a 4-year show-cause notice and a one-year ban. With that Ryan Day is on the lead for sure. The rivalry between Michigan Wolverines and Ryan’s Ohio State Buckeyes is well known. Now that the team guide Jim is out of the picture for a while, Ohio stands at a plus point position.

As Jim would not be there to assist Michigan for the season, the defensive gap is assumed to be larger with time and that is not at all a good position to be in, before competing with the rivals.

Harbaugh’s suspension boosts Ryan Day and Co’s win chances

Jim Harbaugh had to face the NCAA over his recruitment violations under the well-known Stalions scandal. The allegations turned out to be true and now that he won’t be coaching Michigan Wolverines anymore this season, Sherrone Moore has to deal with all of it, trying to help the team perform their level best.

On August 11th, on The Number One College Football Show, RJ Young talked about the Michigan-Ohio rivalry, as he stated, “They’re like, well RJ, these Michigan football players are a little bit more talented than you. But they’re not more talented than the dudes at Ohio State. They just beat them.” RJ put a straight view keeping in mind that Jim will be out, combined with the fact that Michigan has lost its entire defensive staff. So, it’s hard for them to win.

In the context of Michigan losing the defensive staff, RY said, “I tend to think that some of this is going to come due like they lost the entire defensive staff and the strength coach to the Los Angeles Chargers.”

Co-defensive coordinator and defensive backs coach Steve Clinkscale chose to join the Chargers staff. Jay Harbaugh, who coached Michigan’s safety line for the past two seasons, left the Wolverines for the Seattle Seahawks. Jim was replaced by Sherrone. Now Michigan has Wink Martindale with them as a defensive coordinator who himself lacks college football experience. With all of this, it looks too difficult for Michigan to win against Ohio this year.

Is Ohio ready enough?

The pressure is too much on Ohio as well this year. Considering that they did not win against Michigan in the last 3 years, are they capable of doing it this year? RJ Young in one of his episodes that he posted on YouTube on July 26th said, “This is also a year in which Ross Bjork is probably going to evaluate Ryan Day by the results he sees on the football field.”  Well, OSU spent a bag full of $20 Million on NIL this year. It’s only natural that some results are expected in return.

Ross Bjork has done it before. Remember when he kicked out Jimbo Fisher? As RJ Young mentioned, “He (Ross) is the guy who found the money to fire Jimbo Fisher, to pay Jimbo Fisher more than $76 million to go away, to go mow his lawn”.

If Ryan Day does not buckle up and prove his worth even after everything is in his favor, we might see the head coach leaving OSU. Let us see what is to come, as a lot of excitement awaits. What are your thoughts?