Stephen A. Smith doubles down on justifying Ryan Day take despite Ohio State's national championship win

Head coach Ryan Day and the Ohio State Buckeyes won the national championship on Monday. They defeated the Notre Dame Fighting Irish 34-23 to win their first national championship since 2014. It was a dominant playoff run for the Buckeyes that turned around what was looking like a disastrous season.

In the regular season finale, the Buckeyes famously lost 13-10 to unranked Michigan. It was the team's fourth straight loss to the Wolverines in Ryan Day's tenure as a coach. Additionally, it knocked them out of the Big Ten Championship contention. At the time, ESPN's Stephen A. Smith said Day deserved to be on the hot seat. He defended that take previously and did it again on Tuesday.

Smith said on "First Take,"

"You da*n right we said had he lost that game, he should've been gone. It was nice seeing Kirk Herbstreit yesterday in the booth being emotional and all of that because that's a friend and he's obviously very closely connected to the program. I get all of that and it's great to see Ryan Day, who's a great coach, validating his greatness the way that he did with this run."

Stephen A. Smith then explained why he believes he was justified in criticizing Ryan Day after the loss to Michigan. However, he did give him credit for winning the national championship and no longer thinks he should be fired.

"But it doesn't change the circumstances that he created by losing to Michigan so much, by not winning a conference championship, and having a $20 million NIL roster, with 11 NFL caliber players returning to your squad this year."

"The predicament that he was in, losing to Michigan that was 5-5 at the time. We were justified in saying what we said then just like we stand here today and are justified in saying he doesn't deserve that now because he finally answered the call for the first time in his career. Period. No stuttering."

Ryan Day redeemed himself with a national championship win

Stephen A. Smith was not the only person calling for Ryan Day's job after the Michigan loss. At the time, it was common for people to say that if Ohio State had an early playoff exit, he deserved to be fired. That obviously did not happen.

However, Day will still face pressure to beat Michigan next season. While Buckeyes fans are happy to win the national championship, many value beating Michigan more than a national championship. Another loss to the Wolverines would not go over well with fans.