What the University wants is to keep the money machine going, ultimately. I hate to put it so bluntly, but Ohio State football is the veritable diamond mine. Why does the athletic department turn a profit? Football being a licensing and merchandise behemoth and ultimately one of the 3 biggest draws on TV, which equated to not 1, not 2, but 3 monstrous TV deals. Are there cracks in that armor? I don't really think so.
Moving the money aspect out of the way (which isn't reality but I had to transition somehow) - how do they define the goals in the contract? He represents the university professionally, he does not run afoul of the NCAA or Big Ten regulations that anyone knows of, and he seems to have boundless energy for all of the required media spots, public outings, etc. Not to mention, outside of 1 particular game, which no one seems to understand isn't an actual stipulation in his contract, he's winning something like 88% of his games.
Bjork is not an Ohio State alumnus. He's a businessman first. President Carter is a retired Navy Admiral. The Board of Trustees, for the most part, try to keep the football factory and the university under the same umbrella - meaning no one is likely go to rogue like that turd for Ped State (Lubrano) and start posting bullshit on fan sites. What that means to me is all 3 of those people/entities are going to view this far more dispassionately than us, the fans, will.
Another factor that people are mentioning and/or stumbling too is the landscape is changing/has changed and is still evolving. NIL is about to be entirely different with direct compensation. The wild wild west era is about to be over, I think, for the most part. In the past 3 years, you've had two dynastic coaches retire (Saban and Stoops), a crumbling empire in Clemson (and potentially Bama) and the most recent back to back champion (UGA) seemingly show cracks in their own invincibility.
Did Saturday suck? Yes.
Is the world over for Ohio State football if Ryan Day is the head football coach on August 1st, 2025? Absolutely not.
Is the risk/reward of firing Day potentially gargantuan? Yes.
Is that a reason to not pull the trigger? Potentially.
This is the first hire in my living memory that carries these risks. What was the risk in hiring Tressel? The program was already struggling and Cooper was clearly out of gas. There was no way to judge Fickell at the end of the Tressel era due to the massive amounts of players missing (not to mention there was a certain coach waiting out there at that time). The risk there was, in my IMO, not moving fast enough to get Meyer on board. I wasn't around yet for the Earle Bruce hire and wasn't paying attention quite that deeply when Bruce was fired and Cooper hired.
I can say that if they DO pull the trigger and fire him, and I said it Saturday, Bjork's entire era will be defined by it.
Someone who has access to all of the variables within the WHAC (Bjork and his staff) are likely putting together a risk matrix. I think, ultimately, that risk matrix makes this pretty cut and dried, even if I disagree with the outcome.
While I said I would have done it Saturday, and ultimately I DO think a new voice may be needed/necessary, when I factor all that together, I don't personally think Day gets fired at this time and I do believe, short of a 60 point loss in the CFP or some sort of NCAA violations or NFL job taking him away, that he will be the head coach on August 1st, 2025.
