Quick? Name the best head coaches in college football? Generally speaking, if you were to ask any media member or any well-traveled college football fan, names like Kirby Smart of Georgia, Indiana’s Curt Cignetti (though a small population size), or Ohio State‘s Ryan Day would be the top three, right?
ESPN released its top college football coaches this week, and those three were indeed among the big three — Cignetti, Smart, and Day in that order — but within the panel that voted, there were some interesting nuggets. One of those was writer Bill Connelly, who is ESPN’s resident analytics expert, and his ranking of Day. He had the OSU coach as No. 8 in the country. Eight! I’d love to see the five other coaches Connelly has ahead of Day (assuming Cignetti and Smart were in there already) and poke holes in that!
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Regardless, Connelly did at least provide some feedback and some transparency on why he ranked the current winningest coach (percentage-wise) in all of college football that way. It sure seems like Connelly boiled it down to one game.
“Honestly, it’s just really hard to evaluate the performance of a successful Ohio State head coach, as it has been the most consistently awesome program in the nation for decades,” wrote Connelly. “I may have dropped Day too far after last season, but I just didn’t think he stuck the landing at all in 2025. When it was time to help that offense shift into gear late and ramp up the tempo and the risk profile against elite opponents, Day just couldn’t do it. I’m not an Ohio State fan, but I was yelling at the TV during the Miami CFP game because the Buckeyes just refused to pick up the pace in the second half when they were down multiple scores. They weren’t up for the task late in the season, and it cost them. Eighth is probably too low, but I guess it could be considered a challenge for 2026.”
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and it appears Connelly has buyer’s remorse, sheepishly writing a reason why he was the only voter who had Day outside the top four, but regardless, let’s dissect a little. Day was one of only two coaches to lead his team to an undefeated regular season (along with Cignetti). The two losses were a close shave against eventual College Football Playoff national champion Indiana and against a Miami team that got hot at the right time and made a run all the way to the national title game, barely losing to the Hoosiers. Both of those teams finished No. 1 and No. 2 in the two major polls.
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Prior to that, Ohio State went on a pretty historic-looking regular season. After a seven-point win against Texas at home, the Buckeyes rattled off eleven straight wins by 18 points or more. Day has made great hires on the coaching staff, isn’t afraid of making adjustments in play and philosophy to continue to drive the program forward, has made the CFP five of his seven seasons in Columbus (meaning he has a better percentage of making the playoff than most coaches have winning games), has never lost more than two games in a season, has the Buckeyes with the best APR score of any program in the country, and holds the best winning percentage of any active coach.
That’s a better résumé than any other coach out there. Sometimes folks look at the recent past to gauge things, and that’s exactly what we have here. We’re not saying you are wrong, Connelly; you are dead wrong.
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This article originally appeared on Buckeyes Wire: ESPN writer ranks Ohio State’s Ryan Day insanely low among CFB coaches
