Ohio State made it clear last week that it believes in Ryan Day and Chris Holtmann.
Day is now one of the five highest-paid coaches in college football after receiving a two-year contract extension through the 2028 season that upped his compensation to $9.5 million per year. Holtmann received a pay bump to $3.5 million while his contract was extended through the 2027-28 season.
Why was now the time to give both of them extensions, considering Ohio State football did not achieve its goals last year and men’s basketball once again fell short of the Sweet 16? We analyze the timing and the impact of their contract extensions on this week’s Real Pod Wednesdays.
Holtmann’s contract extension undoubtedly came with more scrutiny from Ohio State fans, yet it makes clear his job is safe for now – though we‘re not sure it guarantees anything beyond the next couple of seasons. We discuss why he deserves more time to continue building the Ohio State basketball program and what he will need to accomplish over the next couple of years to continue to be the right man for the job.
As for Day’s contract extension, we discuss how his new deal – and the money Ohio State spent on its assistant coaches this offseason – demonstrates that OSU is fully committed to doing what it needs to do to compete for national championships (12:20). Plus, we consider how Day’s first three years as Ohio State’s head coach stack up with his predecessors Urban Meyer and Jim Tressel.
While we generally keep our focus on Ohio State sports on Real Pod Wednesdays, we couldn’t not talk about the Nick Saban vs. Jimbo Fisher drama (23:02) this week. We personally want to see more public beefs between college football coaches, and we discuss why the SEC and college football as a whole should lean into the fun rather than trying to back away from it.
We also talk about some of the other changes coming to college football, including:
- 33:05: The pros and cons for Ohio State of the likely death of divisions in the Big Ten
- 41:41: Whether eliminating the 25-man limit per signing class will make a real impact on recruiting
- 44:25: Why an FBS football split from the NCAA could solve some problems, but probably not all problems
Finally, we share what we learned about Malaki Branham and E.J. Liddell from the NBA Draft Combine (53:45) and make our picks for who will be Ohio State football’s top competition in the Big Ten this year (57:00).
You can listen to Real Pod Wednesdays in the audio player above or wherever you listen to podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.