Coaching in Columbus

If you couldn't tell by my last blog entry or my interests, the four Columbus sports teams I watch regularly are the Crew, Blue Jackets, Ohio State Basketball and football. All of these teams except for one are blessed by one thing.

Good Coaches.

Wilfred Nancy is a proven winner. He has helped the Crew become the best team in Major League Soccer behind maybe just Inter Miami despite not having a lot of big name players like the aforementioned Inter Miami, LA Galaxy and LAFC. In less than two seasons, he's won MLS Cup, Leagues Cup, and got the Crew to the CONCACAF Champions Cup for the first time in Club history and lost a game where his team was plagued by food poisoning. His style of play has gotten the Crew their most points and wins in Club history and got them ranked #1 in ALL of North America. I could go on and on about how much he's done for the Crew, but I will move on. 

Jake Diebler came in as an interim head coach for Ohio State basketball after the disaster that was Chris Holtmann. Immediately, he upset #2 Purdue at home. He picked up a struggling Ohio State and was able to get them to the NIT, where they narrowly lost to Georgia in the quarterfinals.

Dean Evason hasn't had much time to prove himself as the Blue Jackets head coach, but proved himself as the head coach of the Minnesota Wild, but made the playoffs four straight years. He didn't impress much in any of those playoffs, but I think at this point, just getting close to making the playoffs is enough for Blue Jackets fans for now. And so far, with as much adversity that the Blue Jackets have gone through with the death of Johnny Gaudreau and the losses of captain Boone Jenner and promising youngster Dmitri Voronkov due to injuries, Evason has been great at helping the players through these hard times.

So you have all of these great coaches... And then you have Ryan Day.

Ryan Day coaches probably the strongest team in Columbus when it comes to talent. Some people have called Ohio State's football team an NFL team playing in college. And yet, he can never win when it matters. He is 1-3 against Michigan (their biggest rival), 0-3 against the SEC, 2-4 in Bowl games, and a staggering 1-7 against top 5 teams. Ryan Day has proven time and time again that he can't win when it matters. He dominates the weak Big 10 teams, just barely squeaks past the stronger teams like Penn State, and ends up losing at the end of the season. He couldn't make it past Clemson in 2019 with the #2 offense and #3 defense in the nation. This team had Justin Fields, Chris Olave, Chase Young, countless players and they still couldn't win ONE playoff game (to be fair, they would've had arguably the greatest college football team ever in 2019 LSU waiting for them). And the one time he did win a playoff game, it was a team he inherited from Urban Meyer. Since then, all those players have left and Ryan Day has constantly disappointed year after year. He is literally incapable of winning big games, even with a team that people have described as "Natty or Bust". I know that top 5 teams are always hard to beat, but it shouldn't be this hard when you coach a top 5 team yourself. Ohio State will never make it anywhere with Ryan Day. As long as he's around, they'll just be stuck in a loop of constant disappointment.