Ohio State football opened preseason practice Thursday.
After about two hours of work, Ryan Day spoke with reporters for about 20 minutes.
He did not break much news, but he did have a few interesting things to say. You can find full recaps of his interviews at various places on the internet, so I’m not going to do that here.
Ohio State takes the field for football practice July 31, 2025
Instead, I want to identify just one (OK, maybe it will be more on some days) item I found most interesting.
How “interesting” is defined might change from day to day, but that seems like a good place to start.
For day one, I was intrigued by something Day said about learning to practice:
“One challenge for our team is to learn to practice without pads on. It's really important. Guys have to stay off the ground and take care of each other, but we also have to be competitive.
“And I say to these guys all the time, you want to be in an NFL camp, then you need to learn to practice without pads on. If you're on the ground in an NFL camp, you're going to find yourself cut really fast because NFL organizations are investing a lot of money in these guys. Well, it's not much different anymore in college. So we've got to take care of each other, and that is a big deal.
"We have to learn to practice well, and smart, and efficient. And so that's a part of a young team, but I thought the effort was there."
That caught my ear because it was a little insight into how a high-level organization operates, but it also struck me as a message that served to remind players (and recruits) Day has NFL experience and can help them achieve that dream.
(A.B.C.: Always be ‘cruitin’, as the kids say these days… or at least used to. I don’t know anymore…)
It is also a reminder he is tuned into every little detail of practice and keeping an eye on the big picture, a balance that can be tough to strike — and one he might have struggled with earlier in his tenure.
But hey, Ryan Day is a national championship coach now, right?
Ryan Day said something his young players need to learn now and to prepare them for NFL training camp is to stay off the ground during practice
— #Marcus Hartman (#@marcushartman)
7:23 PM • Jul 31, 2025
A bonus most interesting thing I heard today refers to the difference players might see in him since the Buckeyes finally got to the top of the mountain last season:
"I think that our coaching staff and myself have always had great relationships with the players. They know what goes on. I think we've always had tremendous buy-in… but when you go through a season that we did, and then you see the results and the rewards come through in the back end, it just gives you a certain amount of testimony. And that matters… When you stand up in front of a team and you put the plan together, whether it's on offense, defense, special teams, or as the head coach, that the guys in there have to trust that you know what you're talking about. So I think going through something like that just builds more and more trust.”
This strikes me as pretty significant.
Not that my perception has anything to do with what actually happens with the team, but there were times I certainly found myself questioning if Day was better at saying the right thing than making it happen, especially after the 2022 and ‘23 Michigan losses.
Leadership slogans are a dime a dozen, but putting them into practice is another matter.
Now that Day has that skin on the wall, it stands to reason his messages to the players come almost pre-reinforced. There isn’t much that is more important than buy-in, especially in high-level team sports.