Introducing the HOF Class of 2025: Why Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner are Hall of Famers
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David Schoenfield
Editor’s note: This story originally ran on Jan. 22, 2025. The Class of 2025 is being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame on July 27, 2025.
Welcome to the Hall of Fame, Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner. It’s a remarkable achievement to survive the gauntlet of baseball writers to get elected to Cooperstown: After all, the Baseball Hall of Fame remains the toughest to gain entry to, especially via the BBWAA path of election.
This trio stands out for their disparate backgrounds. Suzuki — let’s just call him Ichiro — grew up in Japan, of course, and was a star in the Japan Pacific League at 20 years old before becoming the first Japanese position player to play in the majors when he signed with the Seattle Mariners in 2001 at 27. A California native, Sabathia was a high school baseball and basketball star in the Bay Area, growing to a towering 6-foot-6 and throwing 95 mph. Cleveland drafted him in the first round, and he was in the majors at 20 years old. Wagner grew up in rural Virginia and played at Division III Ferrum College. He wasn’t big, but his fastball was. The Houston Astros drafted Wagner in the first round, and he debuted at age 24 before turning into one of the most dominant relief pitchers of all time.
All three are now Hall of Famers. Let’s look at three reasons each player got there.
Why Ichiro Suzuki is a Hall of Famer
Ichiro was just one vote shy of becoming the second unanimous selection (Mariano Rivera did it in 2019). In one sense, maybe it’s a little surprising he had that many votes — you could argue Ichiro is perhaps a little overrated. After all, he had 60.0 career WAR in the majors; Bobby Abreu, by comparison, was on this ballot with 60.2 career WAR and received just 26% of the vote. Ichiro’s career 107 OPS+ is now the third lowest for any Hall of Fame outfielder, ahead of only Lloyd Waner and 19th-century speedster Tommy McCarthy. So why Ichiro?
1. 3,000 career hits
OK, Ichiro was mostly a singles hitter, not hitting for much power with a career high of 15 home runs in a season, but he turned beating out infield singles and grounding base hits up the middle into an art form. He reached 200 hits his first 10 seasons with the Mariners, leading the league in seven of those years. Over the past 10 seasons, all major leaguers have combined for just 17 200-hit seasons — and the best of those was Ronald Acuna Jr.’s 217 hits in 2023, a total Ichiro exceeded five times, including a record 262 in 2004, a season he hit .372 (nobody has hit for as high an average since).
Considering he didn’t debut with the Mariners until his age-27 season, it remains remarkable that Ichiro is one of just 33 players with 3,000 hits. The other 32 averaged 994 hits through their age-26 season, with Wade Boggs’ 531 hits the lowest in the group. Of those to debut after 1930, all who are eligible for the Hall of Fame and not tainted by a betting or PED scandal were voted in on the first ballot except Craig Biggio (who took three tries to get elected). Getting to 3,000 hits made Ichiro an automatic selection.
Two keys to Ichiro’s hit total: his remarkable durability and the fact that he didn’t walk much (which is why he had a .400 OBP just once in his career). He averaged a remarkable 159 games played through his first 12 seasons, suffering just one minor stint on the injured list over that span. The sight of Ichiro constantly stretching between pitches and in the outfield is as much a part of his lasting image as him sprinting down the first-base line or racing into the corner to make another spectacular catch.
2. He was an inner-circle Hall of Fame talent
The earlier comparison to Abreu might suggest that Ichiro is a borderline Hall of Fame player. That belief, however, underestimates how transcendent Ichiro was at his peak — and that seven of his peak seasons came in Japan before he signed with the Mariners. While voters are voting on Ichiro’s accomplishments in only the major leagues, it seems fair to at least recognize that we witnessed only a portion of his greatness.
Consider this: In his first four seasons in the majors, from 2001 to 2004, Ichiro hit .339 and averaged 6.5 WAR per season. In Japan, Ichiro was a sensation right away, hitting .385 in his first full season, as good at age 20 as his final season in Japan, when he hit .387. We can thus assume he would have produced similar results in MLB from ages 20 to 26 as he did from 27 to 30. That adds up to an additional 45 WAR — on top of the 60 that Baseball-Reference credits him during his time in the majors.
How impressive would 105 career WAR be? Since the expansion era in 1961, only six position players have reached 100 career WAR: Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Rickey Henderson, Mike Schmidt, Albert Pujols and Joe Morgan. This suggests Ichiro belongs on that level of inner-circle appreciation.
Much of his value came from his all-around brilliance on the bases and as a right fielder (he won 10 Gold Gloves). Baseball-Reference credits him with plus-62 runs as a baserunner (18th all time) and plus-121 runs on defense (18th among outfielders). He had two of the most efficient base-stealing seasons of all time, going 45-for-47 in 2006 and 43-for-47 in 2008, plus he led the league with 56 steals in his MVP/Rookie of the Year season of 2001. As a right fielder, Ichiro combined impeccable instincts with a strong and accurate arm. He excelled at charging the ball quickly and preventing runners from advancing, and he never seemed to make a mistake in the field — indeed, he was charged with only 38 errors in 19 seasons.
So, yes, Ichiro was overrated as a hitter. But his all-around skills and peak performance correctly put him in a class among the elite of the elite.
3. Come on, he was Ichiro — an icon
In the end, sometimes “Hall of Famer” doesn’t need an argument; it’s just a description to explain the obvious: Ichiro is a Hall of Famer, no matter what the numbers do or don’t say. Who was cooler than Ichiro wearing his shades, pointing his bat at the pitcher in his pre-pitch ritual and then tugging at his right sleeve. Early in his first month in the majors, Mariners announcer Dave Niehaus made an instant legend of Ichiro with his description of his famous throw to nail Terrence Long at third base: “I’m here to tell you that Ichiro threw something out of Star Wars down there at third base!” Ichiro was a throwback to a different era of hitting. He was a trailblazer. An absolute one of a kind. Unanimous? He certainly should have been.
Why CC Sabathia is a Hall of Famer
Sabathia finished 251-161 with a 3.74 ERA, 61.8 WAR and a Cy Young Award with Cleveland in 2007. None of those numbers necessarily scream first-ballot Hall of Famer and, indeed, only Sandy Koufax has a lower career WAR among starting pitchers elected on their first ballot. Here’s how Sabathia made it.
1. A high peak level of performance
Sabathia had a five-year run from 2007 through 2011 in which he went 95-40 with a 3.09 ERA and 30.4 WAR while averaging 240 innings per season, which now seems like a Herculean workload. He won the one Cy Young Award and finished in the top five of the voting in the other four seasons. During those seasons, only Roy Halladay had a higher WAR among pitchers — and there was a big gap from Sabathia to Cliff Lee, the No. 3 guy who had 25.0 WAR — and nobody won more games.
Along the way, Sabathia famously carried the Milwaukee Brewers into the playoffs in 2008 — their first playoff appearance at the time since 1982 — starting on three days’ rest for his final three starts, including tossing a playoff-clinching complete game on the final day of the season. The next year, he signed with the New York Yankees and led them to a World Series title, going 3-1 with a 1.98 ERA in the postseason.
Sabathia fits into more of an old-school definition of a Hall of Famer: Was he the best at his position for an extended period of time? His 251 wins are the same as Bob Gibson and more than quality Hall of Famers such as Juan Marichal, Whitey Ford, Pedro Martinez or Don Drysdale. Those guys all felt like Hall of Famers, as did Sabathia. And he did enough around that peak — six other seasons with at least 3 WAR and appearing in 10 different postseasons — to merit selection.
2. The best of a generation
Indeed, Sabathia stands out along with Halladay (who was elected posthumously in 2019) as the bridge between the Martinez/Randy Johnson/Greg Maddux/Tom Glavine/John Smoltz group to the still-active trio of Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw, who came along a few years after Sabathia. Verlander has 262 wins, but Scherzer has 216 and is petering out. Kershaw has 212 and is coming off a two-win 2024 season. Zack Greinke finished with 225 wins. Even Halladay finished with just 203 wins.
Other than Andy Pettitte, who debuted six years before Sabathia and won 256 games, and Sabathia’s former teammate Bartolo Colon, who won 247, other pitchers from Sabathia’s generation didn’t last long enough for Hall consideration: Johan Santana had an amazing peak but won just 139 games; Felix Hernandez was on the ballot for the first time and received enough votes to stay on, but his last good season came at age 29; and Cliff Lee won 143 games and got injured. There are some other 200-game winners — Tim Hudson (off the ballot) and Mark Buehrle (still on) — but Sabathia was the rarity of his generation, combining both peak value and longevity.
3. Timing is everything
Sabathia’s vote total was, no doubt, helped by the general weakness of this ballot, where only Ichiro was a slam-dunk candidate. Voters want to vote players in, so in a sense, candidates are compared as much to the other players on the ballot as to Hall of Fame standards. If Sabathia was on the ballot in 2015 — a ballot that included Johnson, Martinez, Smoltz, Curt Schilling, Roger Clemens and Mike Mussina — he doesn’t get in. But his “competition” on this ballot was the aforementioned Pettitte, Buehrle and Hernandez (the only other starting pitchers even on the ballot). This isn’t to knock Sabathia’s accomplishments, but it’s a truth of Hall of Fame voting results: The ballot itself matters. It took Mussina, with 270 wins and 82.8 career WAR, six times to get elected because he faced a lot of crowded ballots. This ballot was not crowded.
Why Billy Wagner is a Hall of Famer
On his 10th and final appearance on the BBWAA ballot, Wagner finally made it in after falling five votes short last year. He debuted with just 10.5% of the vote in 2016, so why now?
1. Once again … timing is everything
As with Sabathia, a lot of it came down to timing. Wagner’s first ballot in 2016 included 11 other players who are now Hall of Famers — plus Clemens, Schilling, Barry Bonds, Jeff Kent and Gary Sheffield. Voters can vote for a maximum of 10 players, so in many cases, there simply wasn’t enough room to vote for Wagner. He was fortunate to receive more than the 5% of the vote needed just to remain on the ballot.
As the ballot logjam slowly thinned out through the years, Wagner’s vote totals increased. Rivera was elected in 2019, so it’s no surprise Wagner saw his percentage increase from 16.7% in 2019 to 31.7% in 2020, which started his momentum toward eventual election. As Wagner got closer in 2023 and then last year, the final-ballot push that players often receive — see Tim Raines and Edgar Martinez as two others who got elected on their 10th ballot — pushed him over the 75% threshold.
2. He was one of the most dominant closers of all time
Look, Rivera is on his own mountain among relievers, but Wagner has a strong case for No. 2. Yes, Wagner is now just eighth in career saves — Kenley Jansen and Craig Kimbrel have passed him, and non-Hall of Famers Francisco Rodriguez and John Franco also have more — but only Rivera can match Wagner’s dominance.
Compare Wagner to Trevor Hoffman, who is second with 601 career saves to Wagner’s 422:
Hoffman: 2.87 ERA, 141 ERA+, 9.4 SO/9, .609 OPS allowed
Wagner: 2.31 ERA, 187 ERA+, 11.9 SO/9, .558 OPS allowed
No, Wagner didn’t rack up as many saves, but he also retired at the top of his game: In his final season, he had a 1.43 ERA, 37 saves and 104 strikeouts in 69 innings. He still had plenty of zip left in that fastball.
To put Wagner’s career numbers in perspective, among pitchers with at least 900 innings since the live-ball era began in 1920, he ranks:
• Second in ERA behind only Rivera’s 2.21
• First in strikeouts per nine innings
• First in lowest batting average allowed (.187)
• Second in lowest OPS allowed to Rivera’s .555
That’s Wagner: arguably the hardest pitcher to hit in MLB history.
3. Voters have been kind to closers
It didn’t hurt Wagner that closers have become the easiest position in which to get elected to the Hall of Fame. Starting with the first modern Hall of Fame relievers from the 1970s, Rollie Fingers and Goose Gossage, there are now eight closers in the Hall of Fame (counting Dennis Eckersley as a reliever, although he split his career between starting and relieving).
Among players who produced most of their value in the 1970s or later, the positional breakdown goes like this (leaving aside starting pitchers):
Reliever: 8 (Fingers, Eckersley, Bruce Sutter, Gossage, Hoffman, Lee Smith, Rivera, Wagner)
Catcher: 7 (Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, Gary Carter, Mike Piazza, Ivan Rodriguez, Ted Simmons, Joe Mauer)
Right field: 7 (Reggie Jackson, Dave Winfield, Tony Gwynn, Vladimir Guerrero, Larry Walker, Dave Parker, Ichiro Suzuki)
First base: 6 (Tony Perez, Eddie Murray, Jeff Bagwell, Jim Thome, Fred McGriff, Todd Helton)
Third base: 6 (Mike Schmidt, George Brett, Wade Boggs, Chipper Jones, Scott Rolen, Adrian Beltre)
Shortstop: 6 (Robin Yount, Ozzie Smith, Cal Ripken, Barry Larkin, Alan Trammell, Derek Jeter)
Second base: 5 (Joe Morgan, Rod Carew, Ryne Sandberg, Roberto Alomar, Craig Biggio)
DH: 5 (Paul Molitor, Frank Thomas, Edgar Martinez, Harold Baines, David Ortiz)
Left field: 4 (Willie Stargell, Jim Rice, Rickey Henderson, Tim Raines)
Center field: 3 (Kirby Puckett, Andre Dawson, Ken Griffey Jr.)
Hmm. There does seem to be a lesson here that you can interpret either way: There are perhaps too many relievers — or not enough players at the other positions.
Sports
Over/under predictions for MLB stars: What will Judge’s WAR be? 61 homers for Raleigh? How many K’s for Skubal?
We’re just over three-quarters of the way into the 2025 MLB season, and some stars are on pace for some amazing final numbers.
Cal Raleigh is making history with every swing of the bat — hitting his 49th homer Sunday to break Salvador Perez‘s record for most home runs in a season by a catcher. Aaron Judge, Kyle Schwarber and Shohei Ohtani are also showing why they are considered the premier sluggers in the sport. And aces Tarik Skubal and Paul Skenes are putting up incredible numbers.
We asked our MLB experts to decide which of these players will keep up their current paces — and which are due to slow down during the stretch run.
Cal Raleigh is on pace for 61 homers. Will he go over/under that total?
Jeff Passan: Under 61, but not by much. The Seattle Mariners have 31 games remaining. Raleigh has had two distinct 31-game spans this year in which he has hit at least a dozen home runs — the number he needs to get to 61 — so it’s possible. Now that he has passed Salvador Perez for the most in a season by a catcher, Raleigh can target the Mariners’ franchise record of 56 set by Ken Griffey Jr. in 1997.
David Schoenfield: His pace has slowed since the All-Star break — which isn’t surprising because he was on a 64-homer pace at the time. He has had just one day off since the break, and the strikeouts have piled up in August, including a five-strikeout game and several three-strikeout games. Is Raleigh finally getting worn down from playing nearly every game? In other words: Under 61.
Kyle Schwarber and Shohei Ohtani are on pace for 55-plus home runs. Who will win the National League home run crown, and with how many?
Jesse Rogers: Schwarber will win the home run title, hitting 56 this season. He has historically slugged well in September and this year will be no exception. In his career, he has produced his second-highest slugging percentage (.521) in September, trailing only June. Ohtani is also good late in the year, but this is turning into a very special season for the Philadelphia Phillies designated hitter. He’s slugging .577 against left-handed pitching, which will translate into a couple more homers off lefties in September and be the difference in the home run race.
Buster Olney: Schwarber will win the title, but he’ll reach 59. He has figured out how to hit left-handers — stand in the box, take the HBPs and square up everything — and has absurdly even splits, with a .946 OPS against right-handers and .943 against lefties. And as strong as he has been this season, he’s just getting warmed up, with 20 homers in his past 45 games.
Aaron Judge leads the majors with 7.3 WAR. What will his final total be?
Jorge Castillo: Judge has quietly gone cold — by his standards — after the All-Star break, with a .193/.346/.398 slash line and five home runs in 24 games. He has insisted his flexor strain, which cost him 10 games on the injured list, isn’t affecting him, but it’s easy to wonder if the dropoff and injury are related. Chances are, Judge won’t play right field every day for the New York Yankees when he’s cleared to return to the field, so that would limit his WAR potential. Let’s go with 8.7 as the final number.
Bradford Doolittle: That 7.3 figure is the Fangraphs’ version of WAR, and its projected pace tool has him landing at 9.1. He’ll have to stay off the IL to hit that, and the pace doesn’t reflect that he might have to DH more often than not. That costs him positional value and the chance to add to his fielding value. He has also looked rusty since coming off his last IL stay. So, considering all of that, I’ll say Fangraphs’ pace is a tad optimistic and I’ll go with 8.9 for the final number … which is pretty good.
Nick Kurtz has an OPS of 1.026. Will he end the season as the rare rookie with an OPS over 1.000?
Doolittle: This could go either way. Of 497 players with at least 75 plate appearances, Kurtz is one of just five with an OPS over 1.000. It’s encouraging that his number isn’t inflated by his homer rate; he can hit. If you remove homers from everyone’s record, the Athletics’ first baseman still has a top-25 OPS.
Another good sign is that he has shown no home-road split. He just hits everywhere he goes except … when a lefty is on the mound. Conquering southpaws is Kurtz’s last frontier. Of the Athletics’ 11 remaining opponents (including Boston and Garrett Crochet twice), all of them rank in the top half in terms of batters faced by lefty starters. I’m guessing Kurtz’s Rookie of the Year season won’t feature an OPS over 1.000.
Schoenfield: Rare is an understatement. The only qualifying rookies since World War II with a 1.000 OPS were Albert Pujols and Aaron Judge. Kurtz should reach the 502 plate appearances needed to qualify and, yes, he’ll finish with a 1.000 OPS. How? His OBP is over .500 (!) in the second half as his walk rate continues to climb and pitchers increasingly pitch carefully to him. Kurtz is not just going to be one of the best hitters in the game — he already is.
Tarik Skubal is on pace for 247 strikeouts. Will he reach the mark?
Passan: Yes. Skubal is at 200 strikeouts through 25 starts. He has at least six starts remaining — possibly seven if the schedule lines up properly — and he has historically improved toward the end of the season. His September strikeout rate is his second highest of any month, and as he looks to become the first back-to-back American League Cy Young winner since Pedro Martinez in 1999-2000, finishing with a flourish will be paramount.
Rogers: Yes — but barely. There’s a world in which the Detroit Tigers clinch their division so early that they back off Skubal’s innings a tad over his final few starts, right? Then again, he’s bound to have a few outings totaling more than the eight strikeouts he averages per start. That would get him to the 250 mark by late in the month. And the Tigers are likely to have a first-round bye in the postseason — meaning Skubal can let it fly in September, knowing he’ll have a week off before taking the ball in Game 1 of the division round.
Paul Skenes leads the majors with a 2.07 ERA. Will his final mark be higher or lower?
Olney: I will say lower because it only makes sense for the Pittsburgh Pirates to give him as much rest as possible for the rest of the season. Pittsburgh isn’t playing for anything, but Skenes has a shot to win the National League Cy Young Award — and you’d assume that the Pirates will do everything they can to make that happen. He’ll close the season somewhere around 180 innings.
Castillo: A smidge over for two reasons: 2.07 is such a low number, and Skenes hasn’t been as sharp recently. The right-hander has given up 10 runs in five starts in August, good for a 3.21 ERA over 28 innings — with his most recent start on Sunday his best of the month, seven innings of three-hit ball. As Buster wrote, the Pirates will likely limit his workload down the stretch, so a significant increase won’t happen.
Freddy Peralta is at 15 wins. Will he be the first 20-game winner since 2023?
Doolittle: With Peralta failing to get win No. 16 on Saturday, he’s looking at an uphill battle. The Milwaukee Brewers might wrap up the top seed early-ish, so they wouldn’t be pushing Peralta during the final week. But let’s say he gets six more starts. He’s earning wins at a rate of .556 per start, so that’s 3.3 over six starts. Not enough! Peralta needs to win five of those last six starts, or all five if he gets only five more chances. I think he’ll get 19 wins. The 20-game winner drought will continue.
Schoenfield: I’ll say yes. Though we always complain about the lack of 20-game winners, we had one in 2023, one in 2022, one in 2021, two in 2019, two in 2018, three in 2016, two in 2015 and three in 2014. Yes, it’s becoming rarer, but we usually get at least one. So here’s hoping Peralta is the one.
Sports
‘His kids were getting messed with at school’: How Ryan Day handles the pressures at Ohio State
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Jake Trotter
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State coach Ryan Day leans back into the leather couch in his office, days away from the season-opening showdown against top-ranked Texas.
Behind him, the Rose and Cotton Bowl trophies from last year’s playoff run gleam on a shelf. Across the room, a black-and-white photograph captures Jeremiah Smith‘s game-clinching grab against Notre Dame — the play that sealed the Buckeyes’ first national championship in a decade.
That thrilling victory vaulted Day into exclusive company: only two other active college football head coaches — Clemson‘s Dabo Swinney and Georgia‘s Kirby Smart — have won national titles.
“We’ve won a lot of games, but when you haven’t won the whole thing, you don’t necessarily get the benefit of the doubt with everybody,” says Day, who took over for Urban Meyer in 2019 after just two seasons on his staff. “You’ll never get the benefit of the doubt with everybody, I guess. But winning one certainly gives a lot of credibility to what we’re doing.”
Nine months earlier, Day faced the fiercest scrutiny of his career — the result of a fourth straight loss to Michigan. As the final seconds ticked away in the 13-10 defeat at the Horseshoe, Ohio State students chanted “F— Ryan Day.”
The jeers escalated into death threats. Armed guards had to be stationed at the Day home, as they had been after past Michigan losses. Day’s wife, Nina, even received threatening text messages and calls on her phone.
“Fans were yelling at his wife in stores, his kids were getting messed with at school,” said 2024 Buckeyes captain Jack Sawyer, who’s now a defensive end for the Pittsburgh Steelers. “The things that he and his family had to go through were just absurd — it’s just insanity.”
But Day and his family remained resolute. So did the Buckeyes, who came together during a pivotal three-hour meeting a couple of days later with just Day and the players.
It began with screaming and tears. It ended with everyone clasping hands in prayer.
“It got real in there,” said then-quarterback Will Howard, also with the Steelers. “But it made us closer — and turned us into a different animal when the playoffs came.”
The Buckeyes bounced back with a fury. They destroyed Tennessee 42-17 at home in the College Football Playoff first round, then annihilated undefeated Oregon at the Rose Bowl 41-21, avenging their only other loss during the regular season.
Sawyer’s fourth-quarter strip-sack and score clinched the Cotton Bowl win over Texas, setting up Smith’s heroics against the Fighting Irish in Atlanta.
As confetti fell upon the championship presentation stage, Day hoisted the trophy and roared, letting the emotion pour out of him.
“Take all the components of what you’d want in a head coach — and Coach Day has all of that,” said Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork. “Maybe it took the national championship for people to really see it. But deep down, I think now people realize we’ve got the right guy.”
BEFORE LAST YEAR’S Michigan game, Day said that aside from his father’s suicide when he was 8 years old, losing to the Wolverines was “for my family, the worst thing that’s happened.”
When the New Hampshire native arrived in Ohio in 2017, he was an outsider to the rivalry. Now, Day feels the fervor that consumes the fan base.
“This is a big chunk of our life — we’ve put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into this place,” said Day, noting his kids have grown up in Ohio. “There’s a lot of weight with this job and a lot of people counting on you to do this job because of what the Block O means. You’ve got to have a thick neck and be able to handle it.”
That was put to the test last November when Michigan stunned the Buckeyes as nearly three-touchdown underdogs — one of the rivalry’s biggest upsets. Afterward, the Wolverines planted their flag on the Block O at midfield and a brawl erupted between the two teams. Police ended it with pepper spray.
“When you lose, and when you lose certainly that game, it hurts — it hurts nobody more than me and my family, trust me,” Day said. “It’s our life. And we understand what comes with it — the anger, the frustration for everybody. It’s real because the passion is so strong.”
In the aftermath, Day was so sickened he could barely eat. Bjork called to reassure Day that he and the administration had his back. Sawyer, Day’s first verbal commitment in 2019 and a Columbus product, also called to say he was sorry for what Day was going through.
“He cut me off: ‘I’m a grown man, I can handle this stuff — this is what comes with the job,'” Sawyer recalled Day telling him. “He’s one of the most resilient, toughest people I’ve ever met in my life — and they’ve got one of the toughest families that I’ve ever been around.”
Day said he gave himself one day to wallow. But he couldn’t let his family or players see him feeling sorry for himself. He told his three kids — R.J., a star quarterback at St. Francis DeSales, and daughters Grace and Nia — that school in the coming days wouldn’t be easy: “‘You’re going to have to be tough — and you’re going to find out who your true friends are,'” he said.
As the Buckeyes reconvened at the Woody Hayes facility to prepare for Tennessee as the No. 8 seed, the players called a closed-door meeting. They invited Day — no assistants.
Sawyer spoke first; Howard, wide receiver Emeka Egbuka, running back TreVeyon Henderson and linebacker Cody Simon followed.
Players critiqued the playcalling, the schemes and individual players and coaches. They called out the entire offensive line, which, down starters Josh Simmons and Seth McLaughlin, had gotten dominated by the Wolverines.
“Guys are fighting, guys are in tears, Coach Day’s getting challenged, he’s challenging guys. You could’ve cut the intensity with a knife,” Sawyer said. “But it was the most special meeting I’ve ever been a part of.”
The first half hour was heated, but eventually, everyone — Day included — took accountability for the Michigan loss. They concluded with prayer and a collective objective — go win it all.
“It was a great lesson,” Day said. “When things aren’t right, you’ve got to have honest conversations — even if it’s uncomfortable.”
WHEN THE BUCKEYES took the field to face Tennessee, they saw swaths of orange coating the Horseshoe. Still disgusted with the Michigan defeat, many Ohio State fans sold their tickets and thousands of Tennessee faithful gobbled them up.
“Our backs were against the wall,” Day said. “When you came out of the tunnel and saw the crowd, you could feel it.”
Day and Howard briefly considered using a silent snap count to combat the visiting crowd noise before opting against it.
The Buckeyes were unfazed — and quickly dispelled any predictions of a Michigan hangover. Ohio State scored touchdowns on its first three drives. By the third quarter, the orange swaths had thinned into empty seats.
“We knew this was our last chance to make things right for us, for Coach Day,” Howard said. “And we all rallied around him.”
Before Oregon, Day showed the team a clip of Lakers legend Kobe Bryant looking angry in a news conference after going up 2-0 in the 2009 NBA Finals.
“What’s there to be happy about?” Bryant famously said. “Job’s not finished.”
The Buckeyes played that way in Pasadena.
The Ducks couldn’t cover Smith and almost every pass Howard threw was on point. Ohio State’s revamped offensive line — overpowered by Michigan and maligned in the team meeting — paved the way for the running game.
The Buckeyes led 34-0 in the second quarter.
“Things were moving in slow motion for us,” Day said. “The buy-in was right, the mojo was right, the tempo was right — we were hitting on all cylinders.”
Even in that moment, Day wasn’t satisfied. On the field after the win, Bjork tried to hand Day a long-stemmed rose to commemorate the memorable victory. Day turned it down.
“He said, ‘I’m not taking that,'” Bjork recalled. “‘We still got two games left.'”
Back in Columbus, the Buckeyes were going over the game plan for Texas when Day paused the conversation.
“I’ve never had so much fun coaching a group of guys — and I’ve never loved a group of guys as much as you guys,'” Sawyer recalled Day telling them.
On Jan. 20 — the anniversary of his father’s death — Day joined Paul Brown, Woody Hayes, Jim Tressel and Meyer as the Ohio State coaches to win national championships. When he reflects on that title now, Day thinks first of his players — and the generations of Buckeyes fans who got to experience the run together.
“I can’t tell you how many people have come up to me and said, ‘I watched that last game with my grandfather before he passed away,’ or ‘My son and I went through an ice storm to get to Dallas to watch Jack run the ball back,’ or ‘We were out at the Rose Bowl and it’s one of the greatest first halves I’ve ever seen,’ or ‘We were in the stadium for the first half against Tennessee and it was one of the best memories I’ve ever had,'” Day said, before reeling off other similar stories. “That’s what this is all about. … That’s the responsibility here. And it’s bigger than any one of us.”
LEANING FORWARD FROM his office couch, Day notes that his biggest fear isn’t losing games — it’s losing the opportunity to impact players.
“That’s the No. 1 goal and focus,” he said. “And you have to win in order to continue doing that. It’s not about the championships, as much as so many people want to focus on that — that’s just the prerequisite.”
This offseason, he had his players read “Chop Wood, Carry Water,” which teaches that big successes stem from a commitment to completing a series of simple, mundane tasks.
The Buckeyes face a big task Saturday. The Longhorns are hungry for revenge after Ohio State ended their last postseason run.
Day knows better than anyone the Buckeyes can’t bask in their national title.
“We lose the first [game],” he said, “and we’re going to be hearing about it real fast. … That’s the way it goes here — more here than anywhere else.”
Day welcomes it. He also welcomes the pressure that comes with the Michigan game. Through four straight losses, he sees an “unbelievable opportunity” ahead.
“That’s it, man,” he said with a big smile. “Gotta go win that game — and I can’t wait to play it.”
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Jake Trotter
True freshman Bryce Underwood is expected to be named Michigan‘s starting quarterback, a source confirmed to ESPN’s Pete Thamel.
The other Michigan quarterbacks were informed Sunday that Underwood will start, a source said.
Underwood was ESPN’s No. 1 overall recruit in this year’s signing class, flipping his commitment from LSU to Michigan last November.
Underwood, from nearby Belleville, Michigan, beat out Fresno State transfer Mikey Keene for the job. Davis Warren is still recovering from the torn ACL in his right knee that he suffered in last season’s bowl win.
The 6-foot-4, 228-pound Underwood won two state championships with Belleville and won 38 straight games in high school.
“He’s grown every single day he’s been on campus,” Michigan coach Sherrone Moore said during Big Ten media days. “And he does everything the right way.”
The No. 14 Wolverines open the season Saturday against New Mexico before traveling to Oklahoma on Sept. 6 to face the No. 18 Sooners.
CBS Sports first reported that Underwood would be named the starter, which could come in an official announcement as soon as Monday.
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