Ryan Day's new Ohio State contract well-deserved after national title run

It wasn't always pretty, but in the end, Ryan Day got his national title at Ohio State, and now, he's getting his reward.

ESPN's Pete Thamel reported Thursday that day signed a seven-year contract to remain the Buckeyes' head coach, valued at $12.5 million per year. That makes him the second-highest paid coach in all of college football, behind only Georgia's Kirby Smart and his $13.2 million deal.

The contract comes after an up-and-down season for Day, who once again faced down a particularly angry fan base at the end of the regular season after failing to beat Michigan for the fourth year in a row, as well as certain writers who will remain nameless saying he should be fired for not beating the Wolverines this year.

But Day bounced back from that loss in convincing fashion in the playoffs, and the Buckeyes stomped their way through the field with four absolutely dominant wins in which they finally looked the part of the most talented team in college football on both sides of the ball.

At this point, Day's accomplishments and credentials cannot be denied. He's 70-10 in five seasons with the Buckeyes, and routinely has Ohio State in the top five recruiting classes in the sport, including this year's fourth-ranked class. He's continued to build them into a true juggernaut on the field and in the recruiting rankings, and the work he's done bolstering the school's NIL program can't be understated, either.

Day's issues were never that he was a bad coach, or a bad recruiter; far from it, in fact. The issue was that when it came to beating good teams, Day routinely came up short. His coaching style got less aggressive, or he showed that he could be baited into playing styles of football his teams were less-well equipped to play than their opponents.

In the playoffs, though, Day finally seemed to open the playbook against good teams to just let his great team be what they should have been all along. They vaporized both Tennessee and Oregon, and let their defense win them a game against Texas in the semis, before sprinting out to a huge lead and holding on against Notre Dame.

Do questions still remain for Day? Of course, and almost all of them revolve around their most hated rivals to the north. Did the title run finally show Day that it's okay to open up the offense and go against teams like Michigan, that they don't have to try and out-tough them and win in the trenches?

If it did, Buckeyes fans might finally appreciate the brilliant coach they have. If not, well, something tells me that new buyout is going to be pretty steep, so they'll just have to live in their misery.

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