Ryan Day deals with being thrust into new role

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio State's Ryan Day said he's felt as if he's "drinking through a fire hose" at times since taking over as acting coach four weeks ago, but he believes the Buckeyes have gotten stronger as a team during training camp.

Day said he has leaned on the deep experience of Ohio State's coaching staff in a "whirlwind" of a month, the 39-year old's first go-round as the head of a college football program. When Urban Meyer was placed on leave, Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith named Day the acting coach on Aug. 1 ahead of two other assistants -- Greg Schiano and Kevin Wilson -- with extensive head-coaching experience.

"Every day it's become more normal," Day said Monday morning in his first time taking questions from reporters this month. "The first few days it was a lot."

Day took over as Ohio State's acting head coach two days before the start of training camp. Ohio State placed Meyer on administrative leave for three weeks while it investigated how he and others at the university handled allegations of domestic abuse made by the ex-wife of a former assistant coach. Last week, the school announced Meyer is suspended from any contact with the football program through Sept. 2. He will not be allowed to coach in the first three games of the year against Oregon State, Rutgers and No. 16 TCU.

Day said he has tried to empower the leaders of the football team and remind them that "adversity can reveal character." He said the team has done its best to stay focused on the task at hand while at practice and in meetings. He said that discussions about the program's core value of respecting women happen on a daily basis.

"We can actually get better from it," Day said regarding the team's on-field performance. "Our team has gotten stronger. The team, the players and the coaches have gotten stronger."

Day said he's leaned on Schiano and Wilson, among others, for guidance in the past month. He said he gets a daily text message from coaching mentor Chip Kelly that tells him, "you're built for this."

Schiano said Day has the 'it' factor as a head coach. He saw him get comfortable in the new role on his third day of practice when he spoke to the team after spending two days trying to get organized. He said he told Day to make sure he stayed true to himself.

Schiano and Day both said they have been impressed with how players have responded to a tumultuous and uncertain time in the locker room. Day said he could see some weariness in his players last week when Meyer's suspension was announced, but they have been positive 98 percent of the time.

Schiano, who previously spent 10 years as a head coach at Rutgers and two more as head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, said Day was qualified to be the acting head coach and that he trusts that Gene Smith and university president Michael Drake know what's best for the program at this time.

Schiano came close to accepting a head coaching job at Tennessee last year, but that was derailed by concerns about his tangential involvement in the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State. Schiano's name was mentioned in one deposition connected to his time as an assistant at Penn State, and he has denied having any knowledge about Sandusky's behavior during his time there.

When asked about the Tennessee hiring issue, Schiano said: "Certainly things like that are tough to stomach. Now isn't the time to talk about it. There will be [a time]."

Schiano said he has spoken with Meyer since the suspension when he was allowed to do so. He said those conversations were personal and not about football.

"Before he's my boss, he's a friend," Schiano said. "I was worried about him."

Meyer said in a statement Friday that the past month has been a learning experience for him. In a press conference last Wednesday after the suspension was announced, he said he "followed my heart and not my head" when giving former wide receivers coach Zach Smith the benefit of the doubt despite a long list of allegations, run-ins with police and other misbehavior that occurred during their shared time together as coaches at Ohio State.

Meyer and Gene Smith fired Zach Smith on July 23. Meyer told reporters the following day that he did not recall a 2015 domestic assault accusation made by Zach Smith's ex-wife, Courtney. The school's investigation determined that while Meyer didn't "deliberately lie," he misrepresented the truth when speaking to reporters about that incident.

A 23-page report released hours after Meyer's press conference said the investigative team could not "logically square" how Meyer answered questions about the incident in July, but it attributed his responses in part to a memory issue.

"We also learned during the investigation that Coach Meyer has sometimes had significant memory issues in other situations where he had prior extensive knowledge of events," the report said. "He has also periodically taken medicine that can negatively impair his memory, concentration, and focus."

Day said he does not know of any instance when memory issues affected Meyer's ability to coach his team.