ATLANTA – Ohio State coach Ryan Day escaped injury Monday night inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium when the driver of the cart used to transport him and two players to the postgame interview room struck a concrete corridor wall.

The collision was more comical than scary. OSU quarterback, Will Howard, seated behind his coach, laughed about it. But regardless of the danger level, Day’s players are convinced the accident never would have happened if their coach had been driving. Because the man they love and trust never hits the wall.

“There were times when I would get in early to the Woody (practice facility) and thinking I’m getting work done, and I would walk past coach’s office and he’s already there,” linebacker Cody Simon said Tuesday. “He’s been watching film and his eyes are bloodshot. He puts that extra time in that no one else in the world is putting in.

“When I see that, there is no one I’d rather trust than coach Day, and I wholeheartedly believe he is, and always will be, the best coach I’ve ever been a part of. The story of our entire team is we all trusted in the leadership of coach Day.”

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Trusting is not how I would describe the public attitude toward Day after this season’s 13-10 loss to Michigan, when it felt like a majority of Ohio State fans wondered if the 45-year-old coach was right for the job. 

But Day’s players never wavered in their support, even when that wall – the one he never hits – began to collapse on him.

Ryan Day fan support dropped after losses to Oregon, Michigan

It began after the first meeting with Oregon, when critics lambasted Day for getting outsmarted by Ducks coach Dan Lanning. But that was nothing compared to Michigan, when Day rightfully got grilled for buttoning the offense, which played into the paws of the Wolverines.

At that point, social media put out an all points bulletin on finding Day … another job outside Columbus. Four consecutive losses to Michigan was too hard to stomach.

Players saw it differently. You don’t easily give up on someone who never gives up on you, and to hear them tell it, Day is a father figure who would take a bullet for them.

“We think he’s the best coach in the country, and we’d do anything for him,” safety Jordan Hancock said, shouting Monday night above the din of a raucous locker room following the 34-23 win over Notre Dame. “We love this program so much and we love coach Day so much.”

That refrain, “We love coach Day so much,” was a recurring refrain through the locker room. And I have to admit the emotion behind those words got to me, because it was real.

It’s easy to tell when players are blowing smoke about how much they like their coach, when it’s just what you’re supposed to say. This was not that. This was genuine.

“It’s not hard to believe,” senior wide receiver Emeka Egbuka said of winning the national championship. “The reason we’re able to be in this moment is because everybody believed.”

Believed in themselves. Believed in the Brotherhood. Believed in their coach.

“I never doubted our head coach,” Egbuka said. “I see the hours he puts in and how much he cares for this team. It’s so genuine. To see the backlash and ridicule he gets online, people saying to fire him, when I see what the real is.”

Egbuka, a quiet and too often overlooked leader of the offense, did not hold back in sharing how it bothers him that “There are going to be people in his corner now who weren’t in his corner a couple weeks ago. But everyone on this team has belief in him.”  

Wide receiver Brandon Inniss took it a step further.

“They’re not questioning us anymore, or coach Day, either,” he said. “That was our biggest thing. We were playing for him. Everyone kept doubting him and telling him he wasn’t a good coach, but we came together for him and won a national championship.”

Will Howard owes Ryan Day his football life

Finally, there is Howard, who worked more closely with Day than anyone. 

It is one thing to like your coach. It is something else to talk about him with such loving care and kindness that it feels like a group hug just happened.  

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“First and foremost, I owe so much to this guy,” Howard said of Day. “He gave me a chance here and he bet on me and I am forever indebted to him for that.”

Day coached Howard hard, nitpicking and developing him into the type of efficient and accurate quarterback it takes to win a national title.

“He’s probably the best coach I’ve ever been around,” Howard continued. “I’ve never seen someone work a game like coach Day does. None of us ever doubted that he was the right guy to lead this team. We stuck together and said we want to do it for each other and for our coach.”

And they did.

roller@dispatch.com

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