COLUMBUS — Gene Smith made a list and checked it twice.
Then a hundred more times.
Over and over, as the Ohio State athletic director devised his fallback plan in case Urban Meyer retired after the season, he quietly compared his top in-house candidate — offensive coordinator Ryan Day — against four names, including two with a distinct northwest Ohio connection.
Unwittingly in Smith’s scope were former Toledo and current Iowa State coach Matt Campbell, former Bowling Green and current Syracuse coach Dino Babers, retired Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops, and a current NFL coach, an industry source told The Blade.
Smith watched the coaches’ games. Researched their backgrounds. Snooped around.
For each possible choice, he wrote out a list of pros and cons.
“I was comparing Ryan to guys who have or were sitting in the seat and making those decisions and doing well,” Smith said.
We know the rest of the story. Meyer stepped down, and the deed to his palace was signed over to Day.
That’s what happened, at least.
Just as interesting — and instructive — is the why and, in an extended interview this week, Smith graciously gave us a peek behind the decision-making curtain.
No matter what you make of his hire of a 39-year-old first-time head coach — and we’re on record with our questions — know that it was not made lightly.
For better or worse, it is the appointment that will most sculpt Smith’s legacy, his 14 years at Ohio State distilled not into the star-aligning, slam-dunk landing of Meyer, but this well-informed gamble.
Let’s begin last winter.
That’s when Smith said he came to view Day as a future head coach but not necessarily his future coach. Long before the late-summer scandal and Meyer’s headaches worsened, Smith still believed his coach was in place well beyond 2018. But Smith took notice of Day who, last year in his first season at Ohio State, helped breathe life into a broken offense.
When others did, too — Day had various reported offers, including from Mississippi State to be its head coach — the Buckeyes gave their sharp, young coordinator a massive raise, elevating his salary to more than $1 million per year.
“Ryan and I established a relationship early on,” Smith said. “When Urban told me how talented he thought he was, I spent time in the summer with him. Ryan was one of those guys who wanted to be a head coach, and we talked about what athletic directors look for in a head coach. We had that candid conversation. I really got close with Ryan, and became so impressed with him.”
To the point, of course, where Ohio State chose Day to lead the program when Meyer was placed on leave as the university investigated his handling of disgraced former assistant Zach Smith.
Gene Smith did not see it as an audition at the time, but that’s just what it became. Through the uncertainty, Day coolly shepherded Ohio State through camp, then the first three games.
Beyond the lopsided wins, Smith said he was dazzled, citing everything from Day’s handling of the unwashed media masses — “I watched every single interview he did with you guys,” Smith said — to his keeping the class in line. Nary a single spitball was launched the substitute’s way. The guy with the beautiful mind could lead, too.
“We didn’t have one peep of bad behavior,” said Smith who, along with Meyer, was suspended the first three games. “Think about that. Opening week of football season, the students are back, parties are running rampant. ... Normally in those situations, you lose something. Something goes south. I can’t think of one thing that went south. Not one. He handled it all masterfully.”
It was then that Smith began to seriously entertain Day as his next coach — which turned out to be sooner rather than later.
The landscape changed during the Indiana game in early October. When Meyer dropped to his knees holding his head — the pain from a cyst on his brain intolerable — plans were made should his health not stabilize. “If that happens again,” Smith remembered telling Meyer, “I’m going to have to take you out.”
The next week, Smith met with Meyer, strength coach Mickey Marotti, the team doctor, and others to form a management plan. Among the prescriptions: Meyer was to keep his headset on (noise is one stimuli for his headaches) and — as if telling a football coach not to breathe — to not shout (intensity is another).
As unwell as he sometimes looked, Meyer carried on. But in Smith’s conversations with the coach each Sunday, it became clear this season might be it.
“It was during that time frame and every Sunday after when I legitimately started thinking about Ryan Day as our guy,” Smith said.
This is not to say he avoided his homework.
Smith made his lists and privately leaned on fellow members of the playoff committee, including Oklahoma AD Joe Castiglione, a close friend. For such an A-list job, he wondered if it was his obligation to conduct a true national search and allow one of his candidates the chance to wow him in an interview. He appreciated the risk of “not allowing them to give the pitch.”
Yet the more Smith weighed his options, the more he came back to Day.
For one, the early signing period loomed Dec. 19. If Meyer was to announce his retirement shortly after the Big Ten title game, a search risked torpedoing the Buckeyes’ latest conference-best recruiting class. “The collateral damage from all that noise could be significant,” Smith said.
For another, Day was his man.
My suspicion is Castiglione’s success with a similar transition clinched the deal. “I asked him a lot about it,” Smith said. Just as a wunderkind offensive coordinator (Lincoln Riley) replaced a retiring legend (Stoops) two years ago — and won big with the infrastructure and staff already there — Smith envisioned Day doing the same with the existing foundation in Columbus.
“When you bring in someone new, in a situation where everything from a support structure is in place, that new person is still going to challenge that,” Smith said. “As I continued through the process ... and looking at where we are, we didn’t need disruption. In any organization, when things aren’t going well, when you know that you have to make significant changes, a super-majority of the time, you’re better off bringing in somebody from the outside.
“When I looked at our organization, the things we have, and the respect the players have for Ryan Day, compared to possibly bringing in somebody from the outside that’s been a head coach and sat in the seat, the risk was less with Ryan Day.”
By the week of the Michigan game, Smith said he had a good idea there would be no search if Meyer retired. After the Michigan game — a stunning 62-39 beatdown masterminded partly by Day — Smith said: “I was sure.”
Might Smith have battled second thoughts if Day’s offense had hung only, say, half a hundred on the vaunted Wolverines? Or if Ohio State had — gasp — lost?
Smith laughed.
“I don’t really think so, but that helped,” he said. “That helped. I don’t want to negate that, because that was the home run sealing it.”
First Published December 15, 2018, 2:00 p.m.
