On Sunday, Penn State fired longtime head coach James Franklin following three straight losses. And naturally, the decision has had the other coaches of the college football world reflective.
On Tuesday, Ryan Day of Ohio State—a program against which Franklin went 1-11 in his roughly 12 seasons at the helm—weighed in on the discourse, and, while he gave the former Penn State coach his flowers, opted for a pretty matter-of-fact take on the whole thing.
“When you come in the building every day, you have to identify what your focus is and what your goal is. Our focus is on these young men and making them better and winning allows us an opportunity to continue to do that," Day said, asked for his thoughts on the high-pressure nature of the college coaching gig (16:26-mark).
"This is the most competitive environment there is in the world, and it’s getting more and more competitive every day,” he continued. “This is what you signed up for. We’re in this environment because we chose to be. It’s ultra-competitive. You’ve got to bring it every day. You surround yourself with great people and you attack every day the best way you can, and that’s it."
“When the moments are great, you enjoy them. When the moments aren’t, you hang in there, you push through and you figure out a plan moving forward."
Day is no stranger to job insecurity. Last season, college football fans were calling for his head after he lost to Michigan, only for the Buckeyes to turn around and win a national championship.
And although Franklin never made it to that mountaintop, Day predicts that the coach will be just fine.
"He did a lot of great things and we had a lot of great games against each other. You take a chance to reflect on it all, but he's going to land on his feet. he's a really good coach," Day added later (27:40). "But then, you know, you gotta get back to work. That's the world we live in."
All in all, Day's mentality appears to be this: your job is never really guaranteed in the world of college football. So while it stinks for Franklin, Day can't get too bogged down in what's happening with other coaches so as to lose sight of keeping his own job moving forward. And honestly, that's fair enough.
More College Football on Sports Illustrated
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Ohio State's Ryan Day Had Matter-of-Fact Take on James Franklin Firing.
