Ryan Day Needs To Ignore Lou Holtz And Realize Playing Physical Is Outdated | Glenn Guilbeau

Ohio State football coach Ryan Day can be his own worst enemy.

Day is an excellent coach, whether some in the Buckeye Nation fully realize it or not. The guy is 49-6 for a .890 winning percentage. But that stiff upper lip, jarhead, stonewall, stoic demeanor and frequent overly defensive attitude just keeps playing right into the hands and mouth of Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh.

Can you imagine how Harbaugh is going to joyfully mock Day over this Lou Holtz episode that played out over the weekend?

I can hear that rascal Harbaugh now:

"This is a great Ohio State team. We have to be ready for the best finesse team in the country."

Harbaugh should invite Holtz to talk to his team the week of the Ohio State game. Holtz, meanwhile, appeared with Dan Dakich on OutKick's Don't @ Me show on Tuesday.

That game can't get here soon enough, by the way. No. 2 Michigan (4-0) hosts No. 4 Ohio State (4-0) on Nov. 25 at noon on FOX. Over the next two months, how many more signs of Day's inferiority complex will fuel Harbaugh?

Harbaugh continues to live in Day's brain day and night. Meanwhile, nothing seemingly stays in Harbaugh's noggin very long other than fun, football, family and which khakis to wear. He played the victim over the recent three-game suspension he deserved, but he didn't get as carried away as Day did after his 17-14 win over Notre Dame on Saturday.

Ryan Day Takes Aim At Ex-Ohio State Assistant Lou Holtz

Day, 44, took a shot while foaming at the mouth at Holtz, an 86-year-old who hasn't coached in two decades. This is because Holtz took a shot at Ohio State and Day on the Pat McAfee show on Friday.

But Day was really talking with Harbaugh on the brain. Holtz never even said the word "soft" or "finesse." Of course, neither has Harbaugh publicly.

Former Michigan offensive coordinator Josh Gattis applied the "soft" needle nearly two years ago after Michigan broke an eight-game losing streak against Ohio State with a 42-27 win in 2021. And Day has been unable to get over it.

"They're a finesse team. They're not a tough team," Gattis said at the time.

Of course, Day had talked big in the summer of 2020.

"Michigan better hope for a mercy rule this year because we are going to hang 100 on them.," he said. But that was at a team meeting, and it leaked out. Coaches say all kinds of things in team meetings. 

Harbaugh lost five straight out of that 0-for-8 run by Ohio State, but it didn't seem to bother him outwardly. Day won his first one over Michigan in 2019 (before COVID canceled the 2020 game) and has only lost two straight. But those two are killing him.

Michigan's Jim Harbaugh after beating Iowa in 2021 to win the Big Ten title in Indianapolis. (Photo by Justin Casterline/Getty Images)

Harbaugh seems to always be smiling. Day seems to be in a perpetual scowl. Either that, or he's got the best imitation going of John Cooper, who was 2-10-1 against Michigan as Ohio State's coach from 1988-2000.

Holtz jumped into the finesse theme on Friday.

"Notre Dame is a better football team than Ohio State, and let me tell you why," he began on the McAfee show. "You look at coach Day, and he has lost to Alabama, Georgia, Clemson, Michigan twice. And everybody that beats him does so because they're more physical than Ohio State. And I think Notre Dame will take that same approach."

Notre Dame did do that, and lost. Ohio State's defense, by the way, must have been more physical than Notre Dame's, too, because the Buckeyes held the Irish to 351 yards while Ohio State gained 366. The Buckeyes also possessed the ball for 35 minutes to 25 minutes by Notre Dame in another sign of physical dominance.

Holtz was also wrong about Clemson's 29-23 win over Ohio State in the College Football Playoff semifinal in the 2019 season. Ohio State played as physical as Clemson, if not more, with 196 yards on 39 carries to 158 on 29, and kept the ball for seven minutes more. A critical interception by quarterback Justin Fields from the Clemson 23-yard line in the final minutes fortunately got Clemson the win.

Alabama actually played the finesse game to beat Ohio State, 52-24, in the national championship game of the 2020 season, too. So Holtz was wrong again. Alabama quarterback Mac Jones threw it 45 times, completing 36 for 464 yards and five touchdowns. That's a finesse attack.

The two teams ran the ball virtually equally - Alabama 38 times for 157 yards to 147 yards on 29 rushes by the Buckeyes, who trailed 35-17 at the half and had to throw. The Tide just had the better quarterback and secondary. Fields completed 17 of 33 for 194 yards and a touchdown.

Day needs to realize that finesse is not a dirty word when it comes to football now, and Holtz needs to click the refresh button. Finesse is the name of the game now and has been for more than a decade. The "physical" approach can be Cro-Magnon. This is why Alabama coach Nick Saban altered his "physical" approach when he hired Lane Kiffin to be his offensive coordinator in 2014 and won the national title in 2015. A pass-oriented team won it in 2017 as well.

Alabama was still a finesse team in 2020 as national champ. The Tide finished No. 62 in the country in rushing that season with 161.5 yards a game. It finished No. 3 in passing with 358 a game.

Georgia was a very physical, old school football team in 2019 when it lost to unranked South Carolina, 20-17 and couldn't stay on the field with soon-to-be national champion LSU in the SEC title game, losing 37-10. Then coach Kirby Smart got smarter and moved to more of a finesse offense with new coordinator Todd Monken. Georgia won national titles in 2021 and '22 largely due to Monken's pass offense.

LSU, by the way, was a finesse team in 2019 when it had one of the greatest national championship teams on record. The Tigers finished 36th in the nation that year in rushing, 67th against the run and 66th in total defense. But that physical part of the game didn't matter because quarterback Joe Burrow led the nation in finesse passing with 5,671 yards and in touchdown passes with a Ruthian 60.

"You take this message to Ohio State," said Holtz, who was an assistant at Ohio State when it won the national title in 1968. "You tell 'em they better bring their lunch because it's going to be a full day's work."

Instead of enjoying the victory, Day chose to go after Holtz.

Ohio State Beat Notre Dame The Old-Fashioned Way

"I'd like to know where Lou Holtz is right now," Day said minutes after beating Notre Dame with a fourth down, 1-yard touchdown run. Notre Dame only had 10 players on the field, yes, but it was not a finesse play.

"What he said about our team, I cannot believe," Day said. "This is a tough team right here. We're proud to be from Ohio. And it's always been Ohio against the world. And it'll continue to be Ohio against the world."

No, it was Ryan Day, 44, against an 86-year-old man, who got you. Relax, Ryan, you have bigger battles - finesse battles. The "physical" 1980s, which was when Holtz won his national title in '88, are over.

It's not caveman football anymore and hasn't been since before you became a head coach. Embrace the finesse.

Nick Saban wishes he had a quarterback as good as Kyle McCord and a receiver as good as Marvin Harrison Jr. So he could play finesse football again, too, as he did with quarterback Bryce Young. The only reason he will be playing more physical this season is because he doesn't have the players to finesse things. You do have those players, Ryan. So, enjoy it.

And don't worry about what Lou Holtz, or anyone else, says.