How Ohio State built a $20 million, ‘national championship or bust’ roster

Jake Trotter, ESPN Senior WriterAug 26, 2024, 07:00 AM ET

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Jake Trotter covers college football for ESPN. He joined ESPN in 2011. Before that, he worked at The Oklahoman, Austin American-Statesman and Middletown (Ohio) Journal newspapers. You can follow him @Jake_Trotter.COLUMBUS, Ohio — Two days after the Michigan Wolverines paraded through Ann Arbor with the national championship trophy in January, Ross Bjork met Ohio State coach Ryan Day for the first time.

Bjork was in Columbus, finalizing a deal to become Ohio State’s next athletic director. There and then, Day revealed a plan that ultimately produced one of the most prolific offseasons in college football history.

Since taking over as Ohio State’s head coach five years ago, Day has a sensational record of 53-8; among active FBS coaches, only Georgia’s Kirby Smart owns a better winning percentage during that span.

But for the Buckeyes, that hasn’t been nearly enough. Day has yet to win a national championship. Far worse, he has suffered three straight defeats to That Team Up North, something that hadn’t happened this millennium. Stinging further, rival Michigan rolled to its first national title in 26 years. Only a week after maize and blue confetti showered the celebrating Wolverines inside Houston’s NRG Stadium, Day showed Bjork exactly how he planned to rebound.

“I was really just struck by his intensity, his thoroughness at the time,” Bjork said. “No one’s been happy with the last couple seasons and how they’ve ended. There’s a reset that had to take place. Coach Day was at the forefront of activating all of that. He had a methodical, intense, intentional plan. … To hear it directly from Ryan, I thought it was really exciting and encouraging.”

Day’s vision became a reality. Buoyed by a name, image and likeness war chest this year of $20 million, according to Bjork, the Buckeyes struck gold in the transfer portal, landing two of the SEC’s top players in safety Caleb Downs and running back Quinshon Judkins. Ohio State signed another star-laden recruiting class, featuring the country’s most hyped freshman wide receiver, Jeremiah Smith. Several key players from last year’s team, including preseason All-America wideout Emeka Egbuka, also put off the NFL to come back for a final season. Day even convinced sitting Power 5 head coach Chip Kelly to bolt UCLA and become his offensive playcaller.

One NFL scout called this the most talented team he has ever evaluated at Ohio State, with more depth than the 2021 national champion Georgia team that set a draft record with 15 players selected in 2022.

“Pound for pound, player for player,” the scout said, “they have as many good players as any [college football] team that I can remember.”

Ohio State’s previous two head coaches, Urban Meyer and Jim Tressel, who each guided Ohio State to a national championship, agree on just how talented these Buckeyes appear to be. On his podcast last week, Meyer said it “might be the best roster in college football in the last decade, as far as NFL talent, as far as depth. … They are loaded.”

An offseason for the ages has only enhanced the pressure to deliver a team for the ages — pressure that a Columbus title parade alone can quash.

“We’ll find out what this foundation looks like as we get into the season and get some of those storms that are coming our way,” Day said. “They’re coming. We’ve got to be ready.”

For Day, the storm has already arrived.

“To the masses of Buckeye nation — and this is not my opinion — I would argue it’s national championship or bust,” said Cardale Jones, the last Ohio State quarterback to win a national championship in 2014, who later cofounded one of the school’s two primary collectives, The Foundation. “I don’t think beating Michigan, I don’t think winning the Big Ten championship game and just going to the playoffs is enough.”

ONLY TWO YEARS ago, Day told boosters it would cost $13 million in NIL money for the Buckeyes to put their team together.

Tyvis Powell, the director of player engagement for Ohio State’s other collective, the 1870 Society, said in the past the Buckeyes missed out on players they wanted because they didn’t have enough NIL money. Now, industry sources say that Ohio State is among college football’s biggest spenders in NIL.

Both Powell and Jones, former teammates, said losing to the Wolverines again and then witnessing them win a national championship “lit a fire under more people’s butts” to get involved in giving to NIL.

“This was the first year that people were very generous donating money to collectives,” said Powell, the defensive MVP of the Buckeyes’ national title win over Oregon in 2014. “There’s something about watching your rival win it all that’s very inspiring to a lot of people. It was like, that can’t happen anymore.”

Together with longtime athletic director Gene Smith, who retired this summer, Day rallied prominent boosters to increase their commitments. Money began pouring in from small donors, as well. Suddenly, the Buckeyes had the means to execute Day’s offseason plans.

Out of the transfer portal, Ohio State snagged Kansas State quarterback Will Howard along with Downs and Judkins.

Howard, who started 28 games for the Wildcats and led K-State to the 2022 Big 12 title, was named Ohio State’s starter this month. Judkins topped the SEC with 2,725 rushing yards for Ole Miss over the past two seasons. At Alabama, Downs was the SEC Freshman of the Year; the NFL scout called Downs the Crimson Tide’s “best player” last year.

Downs entered the portal Jan. 17 after Alabama coach Nick Saban stunningly announced he was retiring. Powell claimed NIL played a role in Ohio State not getting Downs out of high school. Many said Downs would return to his home state and play for Georgia, which had just hired Downs’ Alabama position coach, Travaris Robinson. But this time around, Ohio State sold Downs on coming to Columbus (the Buckeyes also added Julian Sayin, the top quarterback recruit in 2024, and center Seth McLaughlin from Alabama’s roster). Downs, a preseason All-American, said last week that Ohio State’s talented roster played a role in him joining the Buckeyes.

“I feel like that was a major piece of it,” said Downs, who called Ohio State’s talent level “above or right at the same level” of any SEC team, including the Crimson Tide. “That’s always a plus to know that you’re walking into a real brotherhood and a real team.”

OFF LAST YEAR’S team, only wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr. and defensive tackle Michael Hall Jr. left early for the NFL draft. Defensive end Jack Sawyer said he and the other draft-eligible prospects came back “for one last ride” after coming up short against Michigan and in the playoff hunt these past three years.

“I wanted to go to the NFL and chase my dream more than the next guy,” Sawyer said. “But I haven’t won a championship. I haven’t beat the team up north. And you walk around the Woody [Hayes Athletic Center] and all you see is championships and championship posters and banners. Having been here for three years and not helped our team win any of those, it’s something that wears on me and it’s something that motivates me every day.”

Day said Sawyer and the upperclassmen who returned have led the way in setting a tone, keeping one another accountable. Egbuka added that the “scars from the past” have generated a new collective focus.

“Nobody on this team has won a big game in their career at Ohio State. We just haven’t done it. It sucks to say, but that’s the reality. We don’t really have anything that counts, anything that matters,” Egbuka said. “But this has been the hardest working team that I’ve been a part of. And we’re also the most tight-knit group I’ve ever been a part of. … We’re really locked in on getting to our goals this year.”

Egbuka, Sawyer, guard Donovan Jackson, defensive tackle Tyleik Williams, defensive end JT Tuimoloau and cornerback Denzel Burke are among those who could’ve been Day 1 or 2 picks in this year’s draft. ESPN Insider Field Yates projects Egbuka, Tuimoloau and Burke to be first-round picks next year.

“No gold pants [handed out for beating Michigan], no natty, that was a big part … of why we came back,” Burke said. “We’ve got to win every single game — no ifs, ands or buts about it.”

DAY INITIALLY TARGETED former Penn State and Houston Texans coach Bill O’Brien to be his offensive coordinator. But when O’Brien accepted the head-coach job at Boston College, Day turned to Kelly, his longtime mentor. Day, a former quarterback, played for Kelly at New Hampshire, and later coached with him there.

Day surrendered playcalling duties to Kelly, who took a pay cut of around $4 million to leave the Bruins and join the Buckeyes. Before becoming an NFL head coach with the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers, Kelly elevated Oregon into an offensive juggernaut. With Kelly as head coach, the Ducks averaged 45 points per game from 2009 to 2012, leading the nation in scoring over that span.

Both Kelly and Day grew up in Manchester, New Hampshire. During Big Ten media days, Day said he didn’t just trust Kelly with Ohio State’s offense, he trusted Kelly with his life.

“I feel the same way,” Kelly said. “There’s a long history. We grew up in the same hometown, we’ve known each other for almost 40 years now. … The same coaches that coached him in youth sports coached me in youth sports. There’s always going to be that connection.”

Kelly will have plenty of playmakers to deploy.

In Judkins and returning leading rusher TreVeyon Henderson, Kelly will have arguably the top running back duo in college football at his disposal. Kelly might have the country’s top receiving duo to work with, as well. Jeremiah Smith dazzled in the spring and preseason.

“You’re like, all right, this team has four guys that can kill us with the ball in their hand — what do we do?” the NFL scout said. “You should destroy everybody when you have that many good players at every position.”

With what figures to be another elite defense with stars at every level, the Buckeyes show no apparent weaknesses, on either side of the ball.

“There’s a great energy around this team,” Day said. “They know what they want. There’s an urgency, there’s a purpose and they’ve come together. You can just see it. … You can just feel it when you’re around the guys. It’s real. So what does all that mean? We’ve got to earn everything we get next year. Nothing is going to be given to us.”

That plan Day laid out to Bjork has come together. All that’s left is to earn what matters most.

“We’ve got the best. Every position group is stacked, with depth. So we have no choice but to win the national championship,” Powell said. “A lot of people love Coach Day. I think he’s a really good coach. [He has] all the resources that he possibly needs to win it all. And if he doesn’t, then the writing’s on the wall. … Nobody’s really hearing any excuse.

“But if he does, then it was all worth it.”