Ohio State head coach Ryan Day believes the Buckeyes should have beat Michigan in 2023

Last season Day picked up his third-straight defeat at the hands of Michigan, but nonetheless believes Ohio State should have won.

Since taking over as Ohio State ’s head football coach, Ryan Day has led the Buckeyes to a 56-8 record and a 39-3 record against Big Ten opponents. Under Day’s guidance, Ohio State has dominated over the last five seasons. That is, except against Michigan.

Those three conference blemishes on his resume come at the Wolverines’ hands. He led the Buckeyes past Michigan in 2019, has fallen short each season since besides the COVID shortened 2020 season.

In 2023, when the Wolverines defeated Ohio State for a third straight year, Michigan made quite the statement. Since the start of the 21st century, the Buckeyes have dominated the Wolverines. From 2004-2019, Ohio State defeated Michigan 14 out of 15 times.

But under Day, it’s been a different story. Since he took over for Urban Meyer, the Wolverines have the receipts to back up the fact that they’re the better team.

That isn’t how Day sees it, though.

“You look at all these different things and you make the decisions and figure out how far off are we, are there major changes that have to be made or not?” Day said at Big Ten Media Days. “That was a very good team, but we still should have won the game and we didn’t.”

At the end of the day, who “should have won” is insignificant — there’s no participation trophy. Whichever team emerges victorious is exactly that, victorious, and that’s the bottom line. And the reality is that last year, once again, that wasn’t Day’s team.

The impression Day has that Ohio State should have won is not without merit. After all, the Buckeyes were the second-ranked team in the country. The Game also was quite close, with Michigan never able to fully pull away despite maintaining a lead for the entire game.

In the second half, the Wolverines couldn’t stretch their lead beyond one touchdown, and with that the Buckeyes were able to remain within arm’s length, even making it a three-point game in the fourth quarter.

It’s unclear if Day’s comment is in regards to Ohio State on paper or the field last November. Maybe he thinks they should have won because he believes the talent on his roster outshines Michigan’s. That could be true, but when both squads stepped onto the field it was the Wolverines that outshined the Buckeyes’ talent.

When the two rivals faced off it had major implications on the College Football Playoffs. For Michigan, the win was a major step en route to its National Championship. For Ohio State, the loss was the dagger in its side, keeping it out of playoff contention.

Day seems to think the two teams’ fates should have been swapped. He seems to think Ohio State should’ve been the team en route to a potential playoff run. Whether Ohio State “should have won the game” — as Day put it — is an ambiguous statement. Because, like Day said, they didn’t.