Ryan Day addresses Ohio State roster overhaul: ‘You either adapt or you die’
As Ohio State goes through spring practice, Ryan Day and the Buckeyes have more than 50 new players on the roster. That presents a shift for the program as part of the new era in college football with the transfer portal as a key resource. Day admitted would have been “nervous” about such a major overhaul a few years ago.
But he also summed up the current landscape by drawing parallels to a documentary he recently watched about the dinosaurs. While on recruiting trips with his son, RJ , Day was able to catch The Dinosaurs from Netflix. It provided a look at how they roamed the Earth more than 250 million years ago and their eventual extinction.
But Day also saw a similarity to college football in 2026 and pointed to the “adapt or die” mindset. “I watched that Netflix documentary on the dinosaurs,” Day told reporters Tuesday . “If you want to feel insignificant, watch that because it talks about how the dinosaurs were on Earth, like, 250 million years ago.
Throughout time … the world changed, the climate changed, the Earth changed. Some dinosaurs figured out how to continue to adapt and some died. I guess that’s a little extreme, but I think it’s kind of the way it is in college football.
The people who know how to adapt are going to continue to move on and the ones who don’t, they die. “As frustrating as it all is, as much as we all want to just pull our hair out and throw our hands up and realize that this is all extremely crazy – even being with some of the NFL personnel last Wednesday. When they look at you and say, ‘You are insane to be in college football,’ they’re right.