Joel Klatt reads into Ohio State's athletic director's comments to deliver verdict on Ryan Day's future

The future of Ohio State coach Ryan Day has been the subject of intense discussion among college football fans and analysts after the shocking 13-10 loss to the rival Michigan Wolverines in Week 14 of college football action.

Publicly, Buckeyes athletic director Ross Bjork backed the coach in an interview with the "Columbus Dispatch" on Monday.

During Wednesday's edition of "The Herd," FOX Sports analyst Joel Klatt spoke about the likelihood of Day being fired after Bjork's vote of confidence (3:12).

"I don't think so just because I'm only going by what their athletic director has said (Ross Bjork)," Klatt said. "Ross is relatively new to the job, this will be his first full year on the job as athletic director at Ohio State and I don't think he wants to go down that road. It would cost a significant amount of money, you're looking at upwards of $45 to $55 million to buy out the current coaching staff.

"You would need to then go and hire somebody and spend money in the NIL, you're looking at another $20-25 million to do that. You're in the neighborhood of $75-85 million to make that decision and I don't think that he has the appetite for it and I don't think that would be the right move."

Ryan Day backed to succeed at Ohio State

During Wednesday's episode of "The Herd," Joel Klatt backed Ryan Day to eventually succeed at Ohio State despite being on the hot seat currently for his horrendous record against the Michigan Wolverines (4:30).

"Ryan Day is a very good coach, I think that there's a block with Michigan. I think when he gets over the hump it's gonna be big," Klatt said. "I mean Harbaugh didn't win over Urban Meyer and they stuck with him when they thought they would fire him in the COVID year and look what happened.

"You look through the history of college football and what you'll see is, most often, even the greatest coaches in the history of our sport, have taken a while to win their championship. It's very rare that you get these guys that win right away like Bob Stoops or Larry Coker. It's generally the opposite, guys take a while. Urban Meyer took a while, Saban (Nick) took a while."

With the Buckeyes ranked No. 6 in the latest College Football Playoff rankings, Ryan Day has another chance to sway Buckeyes fans to his cause by competing for the national championship which will go a long way towards curing the ills of losing to the Michigan Wolverines.