Ohio State’s Gene Smith Doesn’t Feel Urgency To Restructure Ryan Day’s Contract

"At the end of the day, he and Nina are very happy here, his family is (happy) here.”

Even though several Big Ten coaches received significant pay raises and NFL teams reportedly showed interest in Ohio State head coach Ryan Day this offseason, athletic director Gene Smith said during his recent press conference that doesn’t feel an urgency to restructure Day's current contract.

“We’ve always tried to make sure that our top-of-the-pyramid coaches like him are paid consistent with expectations and consistent with performance,” Smith said on Wednesday. “I’m not sure, he might be third in the league now. I haven’t looked at it. Whenever we get to that, we’ll look at it from that perspective, and then we benchmark and look at the other people in the league, we look at national.

“I haven’t even started, and so we’ll go down that process. I don’t feel an urgency. I feel like we need to do it the right way with he and his family, with the university president and board of trustees – and we’ll get to that.”

Day, who is entering his fourth season as the Buckeyes’ head coach, signed a contract extension in 2020 that runs through the 2026 season and will pay him $7.6 million this fall. He was the highest-paid coach in the conference until Michigan State’s Mel Tucker and Penn State’s James Franklin received 10-year deals this offseason valued at $9.5 and $8.5 million per year, respectively.

The 42-year-old was also linked to an opening with the Chicago Bears, who fired head coach Matt Nagy in January and have since filled the position with Indianapolis Colts defensive coordinator Matt Eberflus. He previously spent two years as the quarterbacks coach for the Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers, while the Bears notably selected former Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft.

“Those rumors were rumors,” Smith said. “(Day) and I are very transparent. If somebody had offered him a job, he’d call me right away. That didn’t happen, so I’m good. He said, ‘I'm happy here and I'm not going anywhere.’”

Day and Smith have instead been focused over overhauling the Buckeyes’ staff after they lost to rival Michigan for the first time in 10 years and fell short of winning the Big Ten championship or reaching the College Football Playoff last season. That includes the hiring of defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, who is now one of the highest-paid assistants in the country, as well as offensive line coach Justin Frye, secondary/cornerbacks coach Tim Walton and safeties coach Perry Eliano.

Ohio State also made several changes to its off-field coaching staff over the last month or so, bringing on former wide receiver Devin Jordan, Florida interim offensive line coach Mike Sollenne, Duke co-defensive coordinator Matt Guerrieri and linebackers coach Sam McGrath, Oklahoma State graduate assistant Koy McFarland, Western Michigan graduate assistant Keegan O’Hara and former Maryland defensive lineman Cam Spence to serve in various roles.

With Day making it clear he has no intentions of leaving Columbus and Smith giving him all of the support he needs to right the ship, it’s clear the current financial situation isn’t an issue. But when it does come time for the two sides to sit down and iron out a new deal, Smith feels confident that Day will be properly compensated.

“At the end of the day, he and (his wife) Nina are very happy here, his family is (happy) here,” Smith said. “I think that’s exactly what he shared when he was talking to you (during his press conference on Dec. 15), and I know that. He’s very comfortable here. I think you’re probably alluding to ‘Is there going to be a contract issue down the road?’ Possibly. He and I haven’t talked about that.

“We’ve been 100 percent focused on his current staffing,” Smith said. “We just finished that with the football hires, and – what most people don’t realize is – we have quite a few changes in our support staff structure. We just literally last week finished (director of player personnel) Mark Pantoni’s operation because we had some transitions there, so we’ve been focused on the team.”

“There will be a time that he and I sit down and talk about his contract, but we haven’t done that at this point in time, and I’ll let you know when that’s done.”

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