As Ross Bjork takes over as Ohio State’s athletic director, he will oversee a football program facing what many view as a make-or-break season.
The pressure will be immense on coach Ryan Day, who has a loaded roster and added a proven confidant in Chip Kelly to run the offense. But if things don’t go as hoped for the Buckeyes, that pressure will then fall on Bjork.
Day’s record is 56-8. The idea of firing a coach with that record would seem preposterous, especially considering the hefty $37.3 million buyout OSU would be forced to pay if he is fired at the end of the regular season.
But Day’s critics would say that his failure to win a national championship and current three-game losing streak to Michigan render that gaudy winning percentage a bit hollow. Watching Michigan win the national title last year has only increased the pressure on Day and the Buckeyes.
No smart athletic director, especially an incoming one, would publicly declare that a coach must win a certain game or lose his job. But Bjork, like Day, embraces the high bar the Buckeyes are expected to meet every year.
Bjork has gotten to know Day in the four months that he’s served in a transition role before Gene Smith’s retirement.
“He's been great,” Bjork said of Day. “He’s one of the smartest coaches I’ve ever been around in my career.
“I love his energy. I love his passion. I think I can help him in a lot of ways. Look, we're in this thing together. We know what the expectations are. That's what he signed up for. That's what I signed up for. Let's go and keep building this thing the right way and make sure that we meet those expectations.”
Bjork said he has been impressed by the culture that Day has established and enhanced in the program.
“You can have all the talent in the world, and by all accounts our roster is one of the best rosters, if not the best, in the country,” Bjork said. “But in today's environment, if the culture and the leadership is not at the highest level, then you're not going to be successful.
“He has really, really focused on those components in the offseason. He's really dialed in on making sure that there's cohesion in culture and leadership from the players to the coaches. Everybody's on the same page. That’s the thing I’ve been most impressed about.”
Asked if this is a make-or-break season for Day, Bjork said it’s important to look at the big picture.
“A lot of times it's easy to get focused on the one thing and that's the scoreboard,” he said. “But what are we doing to build the program? What is the leadership environment? Are we doing it the right way? Are we recruiting at the highest level, which we are? Are we doing the process things the right way?”
If all that is humming and the Buckeyes happen to, in Bjork’s words, “stub our toe,” that stubbing wouldn’t be all that matters.
“Ryan Day is a winner,” Bjork said. “There's no question about that, and he knows what he's doing at the highest level. So how do we continue to support him and support the program?
“We all know what the expectations are, so I think you have to look at the totality of how the program is led on a day-to-day basis. (If) we have the right person and are there little things that are barriers that we need to knock down, then that's my job to help him get through those things.”
But winning obviously matters, especially that game in late November. If the Buckeyes lose at home to a Michigan team that’s expected to be rebuilding after its championship run, would it be tenable, Bjork was asked, to keep a coach who would have lost four straight to OSU’s archrival?
“We know what the expectations are,” he said.
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