COLUMBUS, Ohio -- There’s a world where Ryan Day is the head coach of the Green Bay Packers.

In January of 2018, new Tennessee Titans coach and former Buckeye Mike Vrabel wanted Day to leave Ohio State to become the Titans’ offensive coordinator. Ohio State president Michael Drake and athletic director Gene Smith, with more of an inkling then about Urban Meyer’s possibly limited future as head coach than anyone realized, ponied up to keep Day, giving him a raise to $1 million as he and Greg Schiano became the first seven-digit OSU assistants.

Tennessee hired Los Angeles Rams offensive coordinator Matt LaFleur instead. The Titans put forth an offense ranked just 22nd in efficiency and missed the playoffs at 9-7. But the Packers, caught in the wave of young offensive minds, hired the 39-year-old LaFleur as their new coach this offseason.

Maybe LaFleur’s connection to NFL wonderboy Sean McVay helped. Or maybe if Day, 40, had left Columbus, he’d be coaching Aaron Rodgers right now instead of Justin Fields.

Why is Day in college football instead of the NFL? As we finish our series on the state of the Ohio State football program, we look at that decision by Day that left the Buckeyes with a ready-made replacement when Meyer, their legendary head coach, stepped aside.

That decision may be due to R.J. And Grace. And Nia.

Searching for a home, Day stayed for a job. Looking for a life, Day stayed at a school. After 10 moves in 15 years, Day said no to the NFL, and within a year a new world opened up for a coach who had never been in charge of a program before. Now Day, his wife Nina, and their three children have their place, and Day, in his mind, has a purpose he’s never before experienced.

He explained that in an interview in his office with cleveland.com during spring football.

“At the end of the day, there were times I would go home,” Day said of his previous stops as a football assistant, “and I’d feel like I’d be working a million hours and I’d have nothing to show for it. You’d be working as hard as you could possibly work, but at the end of the day, you come home to your wife and kids and you’re like, ‘What do I have to show for this?’

“Here, you’re relevant. Here, you have something to show for it. Here, it makes sense. You’re working a million hours and you’re on the road recruiting and you’re doing all these things, but at the end of the day, you’re competing for a championship. You’re competing for a Big Ten Championship, you’re in the Rose Bowl, you’re taking your family to the Cotton Bowl.

“These are the things I’ll never forget.”

He’s just getting started.

Day’s five-year contract pays him an average of $4.5 million per year. The kids are 10, 8 and 5, with R.J., the oldest, finishing fifth grade. If all goes well, Columbus is the city the kids will know as their home, the place where they could go to the mall for two years with no problem when dad was the offensive coordinator, and where everyone started noticing them on family outings after he took over as the boss.

This is Ryan and Nina’s plan, was always the plan, though plans in coaching are often in the hands of other people. As parents, they wanted to stop moving when the kids got older. As pragmatists, they believed college football offered the better shot at stability than the NFL. Anyone can go 4-12 in the pros and be gone before the bedrooms in the new house have been repainted. At a powerhouse college program, some level of winning is almost assured … and you might get more time to smooth out what bumps you may encounter.

(One dose of reality: I’ve talked to coaches in the past about the importance of settling in or living near family or coaching near home, only to watch them leave for the next small raise or bump in responsibility.)

But if a coordinator with no head coaching experience was the right guy for an OSU program turned inside-out in the last year … then Ohio State was also the right place for a New Hampshire-born former quarterback who grew up on the Patriots.

There are no true college football powers in New England (sorry Boston College, where Day had three separate stints totaling nine years as a grad assistant, receivers coach and coordinator). As the Days moved through the coaching world, they figured out that putting down roots in the West or the South wasn’t for them. They lived in Philadelphia and San Francisco during Day’s two years as an NFL quarterbacks coach with the Eagles and the 49ers and discovered that life in cities that size was a little overwhelming for their small-town backgrounds.

So the Midwest became the logical landing spot; preferably a city with some action, but not too much; and certainly a football team that could win it all.

“I wanted to be a head coach, and I’m very competitive, and Nina knew from the beginning that going to some smaller school, that was never going to be enough for me,” Day said. “So it was, ‘How do we make this as normal as we can?’ We wanted to be in a place where you could bring up your family and you could compete at the highest level.

“This place checked all those boxes for us.”

Again, this was the plan all along, at least in their minds. Even the jump to the NFL to work for Chip Kelly, Day’s mentor, was designed with a college head coaching job in mind.

“Absolutely,” Day said. “That was all part of it, for sure. Where it would go, I didn’t know, but I just knew in the end it would be really good for our future.”

Day looked at his two NFL seasons as pursuing his football PhD.

“You spend your whole time on football, where you just don’t have that time in college,” Day said. “When I went to the NFL, I said, ‘I’m going to spend my whole time until I’m out of the NFL studying quarterback play and the pro passing game. I’m going to study that and that’s what I did. When I got done with my experience there, I was ready to go coach anywhere in the country and have great conversations with the best minds in football about quarterback play and the passing game.”

Day took that in so he could spill it back out to college players in a simpler form. There’s a reasonable fear, I think, of NFL coaches treating teenagers like NFL players. Day had an answer for that.

“It isn’t what we know,” Day said. “It’s what they know. And some of the best coaching you can do is not telling kids something.”

With Dwayne Haskins last year, Day said there were times he’d explain what read Haskins should make against a certain defense on a particular play, without worrying about the why. Through the season, Haskins wanted more whys, and Day provided them.

“But I think sometimes, coaching less is better,” Day said. “That’s the art of coaching, figuring out with each kid what is the right way to approach it?”

Haskins and Day worked in concert a season ago to produce the most explosive passing game in Ohio State history. It was another sign that Day made the right decision, and that Ohio State was the right place.

Grace and Nia (whose full name is Ourania) were named after Ryan and Nina’s great-grandmothers. R.J. is Ryan Jr. The Days were a tight unit of five in a strange land after Kelly and the entire staff was fired in San Francisco and the friendship between Kelly and Meyer helped bring Day to Columbus.

Then during Day’s first season, on Senior Day in 2017, the new coordinator’s quarterback brought the new coordinator’s son to the postgame interview session, J.T. Barrett accompanied by R.J. Day.

Now, more than a year later, R.J. knows some of the recruits, he plays Fortnite with J.K. Dobbins, and the receivers treat him as a little brother. Day emphasized that this wasn’t the world he grew up in. He and his wife are searching to replicate the simplistic normalcy of of their upbringings in an abnormal football setting.

One Saturday early in 2017, Day looked up in a winning locker room and saw Meyer standing in front of the team -- with R.J. beside him. So when Day, at a November news conference, saw his son with his quarterback in this place he didn’t know before he arrived, he thought to himself, “Yeah, that’s about where R.J. should be.”

This was the new normal.

Grace is sharp for an 8-year-old, understands the whole deal and locks in on gameday. Nia’s only 5, but she likes family days at the facility. And by now, R.J. has the run of the football building. Ryan and Nina have told the kids there will be losses and some days that are difficult -- they all lived through staff firings in Philadelphia and San Francisco.

But the Days are happy. Happy they came. Happy they stayed. One day during spring practice, OSU quarterback Justin Fields was explaining something about his new football home in Columbus, having just arrived in January.

Fields started talking about R.J. Yeah, the Days are about where they should be.

OHIO STATE FOOTBALL STATE OF THE PROGRAM

Part 1: THE QUARTERBACK -- Justin Fields’ NFL balance

Part 2: THE YOUNG TALENT -- Teradja Mitchell and potential sophomore starters

Part 3: THE PRESIDENT -- Michael Drake’s expectations

Part 4: THE PODCAST -- The State of the Buckeyes with four diehard fans

Part 5: THE OFFENSE -- Freshman receiver Garrett Wilson knew the secret

Part 6: THE COACH -- Why Ryan Day turned down the NFL

Get Buckeyes Insider texts in your phone from Doug Lesmerises: Cut through the clutter of social media and communicate directly with the award-winning OSU football reporter, just like you would with your friends. There’s a free trial for the month of May. Sign up now for OSU insight in your phone every day.