Ohio State has used brotherhood and humility to become the best program in college football

Ohio State has the second-most wins in college football history. They also have the highest winning percentage of all time. Ryan Day has the highest winning percentage for a head coach in college football history. The Buckeyes are the only FBS program to have never lost more than seven games in a season. They are also tied for the second-most Heisman Trophies.

These stats alone would be more than enough to serve as a foundation upon which to build the claim that Ohio State is the greatest program in the history of the sport. However, while those accomplishments are points of pride, they have little tangible impact on the program’s recent, remarkable rise to the apex of college football under Ryan Day.

Following yesterday’s dominant 27-9 victory over No. 15 Michigan, the evidence is overwhelming: Ohio State is the best team in college football.

Since losing to their rivals exactly one year ago, OSU has won 16-straight games, beating seven ranked teams, and dominating their opponents in historic fashion. For whatever questions fans, analysts, and opposing coaches have had about Ryan Day during his tenure in Columbus, he has answered them and more over the past year.

While Ohio State has spent more than two decades entrenched among the sport’s elite, what Day has achieved in the past 365 days is unparalleled in the modern history of the sport.

Amidst essentially unregulated player payments, billion-dollar media deals, unrestricted transfers, chaotic realignment, College Football Playoff expansion and tinkering, pending lawsuits, and contradictory legislation, the job of a head coach has never been more complex. And while a lot of Day’s success can be rightly attributed to his elite football knowledge and executive-level management, to me, what has made this program the pinnacle of the sport is the people.

Talking about “brotherhood” has become one of college football’s most overused cliches, but at Ohio State, it genuinely functions as a lifestyle, not lip service.

That brotherhood fueled the player-led meeting with Day and the coaching staff that many cite as the impetus for the refocusing that produced the 16-game winning streak that carried the program through the College Football Playoff, a national championship, and now an undefeated regular season that will continue on Saturday in the Big Ten Championship Game against Indiana in Indianapolis.

Over the course of the last two seasons, the brotherhood has been evident in how they’ve rallied around one another, building bonds based on shared struggles and successes, faith, and their ultimate goals. But what has most impressed me in the calendar year since Ohio State last lost to their rivals is how Day and his team have handled their business.

In his postgame interview with Fox’s Jenny Taft, and again in his press conference inside Michigan Stadium, the OSU head coach spoke about how it was important for his team to win with humility. While that was clearly a not-so-thinly-veiled jab at the lack of class displayed by Sherrone Moore’s program in recent seasons, it was emblematic of something far more important: a genuine shift in how Day sees his role in helping his team reach its goals.

I have been far from alone in attributing Ohio State’s losses to their rivals to Day’s pride, as, at times, he has seemed singularly intent on winning with a brand of football that he had neither prepared his team for nor built his program to play. And while the specifics of the aforementioned player-led meeting a year ago have not completely left the walls of the Woody Hayes Athletic Center, from what we do know, the players felt much the same way.

Despite my concerns over his coaching philosophy at times, I have never once questioned Day’s character as an individual or as a coach. However, the way he handled the tough love that came from that meeting is commendable. As the head coach and CEO of one of the biggest brands in sports, as someone who makes a multimillion-dollar salary to be in charge, I am sure that the players’ pushback and criticisms, regardless of how well-intentioned they were, stung Day’s ego — how could they not? But it’s clear that after some self-reflection, he heard his team the way they intended and implemented the lessons they were trying to teach him.

One year later, a national title and gold pants in hand, it seems safe to say that Ryan Day’s humility — and willingness to do the hard work on himself — was the turning point in taking the Ohio State football program from very good to utterly dominant. And as all good families do, the team took its cues from its leaders and has modeled that behavior all year long.

When I spoke with OSU running back James Peoples during the team’s first off week, he told me that the brotherhood shapes every decision inside the program, starting with recruiting.

“ What makes this brotherhood special is the people,” Peoples said. “The guys that we recruit, that we bring into the Woody, we bring in a certain type of people. The people that you let into your building, those are the people that represent you in and outside of the building. So when we [are] talking about brotherhood, we [are] talking about the people. It’s all about the people at the end of the day. When you got the right people, you know you’re gonna have the right atmosphere, the right nucleus, the right guys. So when we talk about brotherhood, it’s such a deep connection that all of us … share on and off the field.”

Though we spoke early in the season, Peoples emphasized that both last year’s title run and the one that they are currently on were fueled by brotherhood and faith.

“It was critical,” he said. ”We had some ups and downs, some that y’all know about, some that y’all don’t. But at the end of the day, this team had to make a decision like, ‘Alright, are we gonna keep the main thing, the main thing? Or are we gonna get sidetracked?’ And, of course the brotherhood was big in that, but I also say our relationship in Christ was huge in that as well. You saw the impact that this had last year, and I’m gonna say again that this year it’s gonna have the same impact.“

Day’s willingness to focus on what truly matters and shed the pride, disappointments, and frustrations that could drag a team down was clearly not easy. It’s especially challenging when the temptation to cling to pettiness rises in the most difficult moments.

In the days following the 13–10 loss to That Team Up North on Nov. 30, 2024, Day chose humility. His players chose each other. And together, those choices have defined a championship run and may well be the foundation of another before this season is over.