Ryan Day falls in CBS Sports ranking of current college football coaches

COLUMBUS — Ohio State coach Ryan Day silenced any and all doubters when he won the national championship just 16 months ago. It moved him up in various coach rankings, all the way into the No. 2 slot for many rankings last offseason.

And the Buckeyes replaced 14 NFL Draft picks with a 12-0 regular season and a College Football Playoff berth this past season. Yet Day still slipped down the latest college football coach rankings from the folks over at CBS Sports.

Yes, CBS Sports coach rankings, which are compiled from a 10-person panel, are out. And Day checks in at the No. 3 spot, down one from last year. He’s behind Georgia coach Kirby Smart, who is at No. 2, and the new No. 1 coach in the sport: Indiana’s Curt Cignetti.

Day is one of seven Big Ten coaches to crack the top 25 of the rankings. He’s joined by Cignetti (No. 1), Oregon’s Dan Lanning (No. 5), Michigan’s Kyle Whittingham (No. 10), Penn State’s Matt Campbell (No. 16), USC’s Lincoln Riley (No. 17), Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz (No. 20) and Illinois’ Bret Beilema (No. 25).

Here’s what CBS Sports’ Tom Fornelli said about Day:

“Ohio State was unable to follow up its national title with another in 2025. The Buckeyes finished 12-2 overall and went 9-0 in conference play before falling to eventual national champion Indiana in the conference title game. They were also upset in their lone playoff game by the Miami team that would also lose to Indiana. So while Day finally got over that Michigan hump, nobody at Ohio State will ever be happy about finishing the season on a two-game losing streak. Given what he’s accomplished through his entire career, though, nobody on our panel even thought about ranking him lower than third. That said, Day didn’t garner a single first-place vote after picking some up last year.”

Of course, Day is 0-1 against Smart, who beat Day and Ohio State in the 2022 Peach Bowl semifinal of the College Football Playoff by one point and went on to win the national title. Ohio State would have likely won the title game had it slipped past the Bulldogs that season.

Day is 1-1 against Cignetti, beating him in the 2024 regular season but falling in the most recent Big Ten title game back in December — in a 13-10 nail-biter in which Ohio State failed to score any points in the second half despite taking two different possessions inside the IU 5-yard line.

But Day’s overall record of 82-12, his 5-4 College Football Playoff record and his national championship ring make him among the very best in the sport. The only blemish on his resume is the 2-4 record against rival Michigan, including a stunning upset loss at home to the Wolverines in 2024, but he began rectifying that rivalry record this past season with an emphatic 27-9 road win over Michigan in the snow.

That’s why the folks at CBS Sports put him as the third-best coach in the country.

If he wins a second national title to tie Smart and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney (No. 11 coach) before Cignetti does, Ryan Day could even find himself in that top spot at some point down the road.