"There were a lot of tears": Ryan Day's wife, Nina, shares ordeal family went through following loss to Michigan

Ryan Day was subjected to intense criticism by Ohio State fans following his loss to rival Michigan in November. The regular season finale, which ended 13-10 in Columbus, was the coach's fourth consecutive loss to the Wolverines, which led to an uproar among fans.

Nina Day, the wife of Ryan Day, discussed with the Columbus Dispatch the ordeal the family faced from Ohio State fans an entire month after the game. The backlash was direct and intense, placing the family under a lot of pressure and fear.

“The time between the Michigan game and the Tennessee game was as low and dark as you could possibly imagine,” Nina Day said. “Extremely negative. Unprecedented hate. They told me multiple times to have Ryan follow in his father’s footsteps and kill himself.

“It was very difficult. Very difficult. There were a lot of tears. We shielded them from a lot of it because I didn’t want to scare them. I didn’t want them to stay up at night thinking anything bad was going to happen.”

Day eventually turned things around in the College Football Playoff, as the Buckeyes went on to convincingly claim the national championship. It was a massive victory for the coach, who many analysts believe is underappreciated by a section of Ohio State fans.

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Ryan Day and his wife questioned their presence in Columbus

Ryan Day has been in Columbus for close to a decade. The coach arrived at Ohio State in 2017 as an assistant to Urban Meyer and subsequently became the head coach following Meyer's retirement.

Nonetheless, he and his family had to question their presence in the city when the backlash began. Nina Day, the daughter of college basketball coach Stan Spirou, knows the criticism that comes with coaching, but this was beyond her imagination.

“It got to a point where, ‘What are we doing here?’” Nina Day said. “It was hard to fathom that people could actually say and do some of the things they were doing.

“It’s very disappointing to me what some people are capable of, but you look at the news and you look at our society as a whole. People are very mean. They’re very negative. They’re nasty. I’m not saying everybody is, but there’s definitely a percentage of people that are just ruthless in their hate.”

Nina contemplated leaving town with her children while Ryan Day prepared the team for the playoffs but eventually chose to stay. The period was no doubt a tough one for the family, one that will be difficult to forget for a while.