Can you imagine what it’s like to be Ryan Day right now? Well, you don’t really have to imagine because it’s happened to other guys. They also had the ambition and temerity to follow living coaching legends who chose to hang around town.

Adolph Rupp had an office right down the hall from his handpicked successor Joe B. Hall at Kentucky. And Bo Schembechler kicked himself upstairs to watch over Gary Moeller as the Michigan athletic director for a year before he took on the wreckage of the Detroit Tigers. And Earle Bruce had to coach virtually his entire turbulent 9-season tenure at Ohio State with his mentor and predecessor Woody Hayes shuffling around in his office at the ROTC Building across the street from Ohio Stadium.

But none of them hung out on television all the time, booking themselves for events and doing everything possible to strike a high profile. They, at least, were somewhat discreet.

Now, Day is attempting to breathe with most of the oxygen sucked out of Columbus by a man who claims to have quit coaching. Urban Meyer’s out of the game, right? … Right?

I’m anticipating some raised eyebrows and scoffs from points west because I’m picking Penn State and Ohio State to tie for 3rd in the Big Ten East behind Michigan State (winner) and Michigan (2nd).

Predictions are a necessary evil. They even ask you to do them in January now for the subsequent December. Which is ridiculous and I don’t particularly like it, but I do them.

At least, when you do them in August, you’ve had time to digest spring and summer developments and even absorb a smidge of training camp.

And so, my capsules for the 2019 Big Ten race, to be posted on Sunday, are quite a bit different now than they were in January. Especially the one for Ohio State.

A lot of people are going with chalk and taking the B1G defending champion Buckeyes in the East because they appear to have the most talent across the board. That’s always a valid reason. When you start stringing ifs and attempt to disregard the most obvious factor in winning football – the speed and power and skill of the players – you’re treading on unstable turf.

But the more I see Meyer hanging around in quite a bit of evidence in Columbus, not to mention promoting his new analysis gig with Fox Sports, the more I think Day is going to have a bumpy ride in 2019.

What’s it like to follow a legend? By all evidence, not a hell of a lot of fun. Sometimes even when you’re the guy after the guy who follows the legend. And that’s for coaches who’ve been around a while.

Back in 2012, in conjunction with Bill O’Brien’s just-announced hire to follow Joe Paterno at Penn State, I spoke to Moeller, Bruce and Ray Perkins, who followed Bear Bryant at Alabama. All of them claimed to be immune to the pressure of such a situation because they craved the challenge. I had to believe them.

But we’re talking about three men who took their jobs in a span from between 30 and 40 years ago as opposed to this turbocharged era of social media and superfans. And all three of them had substantial major-college and/or NFL head coaching experience. They had their feet under them, girded for what they knew lay ahead.

Further, their adored predecessors weren’t on TV every weekend or around town appearing at public events. Moeller probably had it toughest of the three because Schembechler was his boss for his first year. But Hayes kept a very low profile, probably in part because of the way his tenure ended in disgrace. And the Bear was dead, having passed within weeks of his retirement.

Meyer, on the other hand, could not be more visible. The headaches that were said to have forced him from coaching seem to have abated enough that he can function quite well. He made an appearance at OSU practice last week. He has some sort of nebulous position in the athletic department. He taught an OSU class on “character and leadership” in the spring. He’s been making one promo shot after another on Fox.

Day could not have a bigger shadow over him than if Andre the Giant was his valet.

I guess this might all work. I mean, Bob Stoops got out and Oklahoma replaced him with a young gun a lot like Day in Lincoln Riley. The Sooners haven’t missed a beat.

Can't wait for OSU football to kickoff? Get your tickets now to see Urban Meyer, Gene Smith and Archie Griffin TOGETHER on 8/26 for a conversation about leadership on & off the field.

cc: @OSU_AD @OSUCoachMeyer @columbusbiz1st



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Day seems to be a really good coach and a smart guy. He basically tore up Meyer’s creaky old spread option last year and smartly rebuilt it around Dwayne Haskins.

But I just wonder. I also know something about Columbus. And Ohio State is not a starter job in any respect. Day did what he did last year as the ersatz coordinator. He’s never been a head coach at any level. And this is the wrong place to start.

Further, Meyer stepped down in his prime with the program running at peak capacity. The fans are spoiled to death right now. Ohio State has beaten Michigan 14 out of 15, bleeding back into the Jim Tressel regime. The Buckeyes have ripped off an 82-9 stretch under Meyer including the past two Big Ten championships. Nobody in the league is recruiting better.

And the Buckeyes are coming off a 1-loss season that the faithful consider something of a failure – no national title, no College Football Playoff invite. That’s how they think around there.

(Further, I’ll believe Meyer’s done coaching when he sits out about 10 more seasons after this one. No, make it 15. But that’s another column.)

On the contrary, those other legends had all clearly lost their fastballs and a sizable segment of fans were either overtly or quietly happy to see them out the door.

Hayes’ teams had been underachieving for years and he suffered his ignominious end at a third-rate bowl. So stodgy were Schembechler’s schemes, he could barely win any bowl game to save his life. Bryant had been kind of hanging around since the 1979 national championship, was in ill health and was generally thought to be on a downward trend. His final team in 1982 finished 6th in the SEC.

So, Bruce, Moeller and Perkins all were seen somewhat as breaths of fresh air at the start of their tenures. I don’t know that you can say quite the same about Day.

Like I said, maybe this will all work out. But if it doesn’t right away, I just wonder if this young man from New Hampshire knows exactly what he’s gotten himself into. Because there is no tougher house than Ohio Stadium when it goes south. I’ve seen it firsthand and I don’t think you can compare the phenomenon to any college or pro sports franchise other than Kentucky basketball. The people are that crazy.

Forget Bruce’s tenure, which ended after nine seasons when the local powerbrokers basically forced him out the door. I’ll always remember the guy after the guy, and the John Cooper era, as most emblematic of the fanatic fan base.

Cooper also was a pretty good coach and had OSU playing at a high level through much of the 1990s, higher than Bruce’s teams. His 111 wins at the school trails only Hayes’ 205.

Except he wasn’t a local (he was from Tennessee). And he couldn’t beat Michigan but twice in 13 tries. And for this he was absolutely vilified. You talk about a man who didn’t know what he’d gotten himself into, it was Cooper. He had been around as a head coach when he took the job and had won a Rose Bowl for Arizona State at the end of 1986, beating Schembechler’s favored Wolverines.

But you cannot know fan venom against its own unless you heard what was loosed at Cooper after some of his losses, from the home fans in Ohio Stadium as he trudged through the portal to the locker room:

“You suck, Cooper! Why don’t you quit?!”

Ryan Day isn’t a local, either. And he might not know it yet. But he’s running a corporation, not a college football team. Except, say, Jeff Bezos, as scrutinized and criticized as he can be, doesn’t hear displeasure of Amazon customers’ directly from their hot breath.

Day is in for an interesting stage in his life. No matter what happens, he’s about to find out he’s not in New Hampshire anymore.