Ryan Day Happy Getting Angry On The Sidelines With Chip Kelly Up In The Booth

As Ohio State entered fall camp, it still wasn’t known yet where offensive coordinator Chip Kelly would be stationed while calling plays.

Since Ryan Day arrived at OSU in 2017 as the Buckeyes’ primary play caller, he’s done it from the sidelines. He had help from “eyes in the sky” in the past, particularly former Ohio State offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson up in the press box.

Wilson once explained that Day sees the game like the former quarterback he is, so it made it easier for him to call plays from the sideline. Wilson, however, is a former offensive lineman and he preferred the eagle’s nest approach.

Chip Kelly is much like Ryan Day in that he was a head coach who called his own plays, so he always did it from the sideline. When he was last an offensive coordinator at Oregon in 2008, however, he was up in the booth.

As Day and Kelly talked more about it, the decision was made for Kelly to be back up in the box calling the games from on high. (Especially since Ohio State never installed the zip line from the press box to the sideline that Kelly joked about back in the offseason.)

Even though Kelly is perfectly comfortable on the sideline, it just made more sense for him to be upstairs this season.

“Well, anyone who’s called the game would tell you that you can get yourself organized a lot easier being up in the box,” Day said. “Most play callers want to get their next series organized. And now with the added part of it having the tablets and being able to watch the last series.”

While Kelly and other staffers can look at how the last series went on film, Day can be more engaged everywhere else. He can also be more demonstrative with the refs and fiery with his players.

Day isn’t quite a loose cannon, but he’s more likely to go off now that he’s not busy getting the next possession together.

“I think when you’re calling plays, first off, it’s hard to be anything other than calm because you have to get your thoughts together, you have to get your next series of plays ready, your next third-down call,” he explained. “You have to communicate while the defense is out there on what just happened and make those corrections. There’s a lot going on during that time.”

Now that Day is no longer focused on calling the plays or getting the personnel groupings together, he’s got time for any other drama that may need his attention. He is now also able to spend more time checking in with the rest of his team, whether that means gathering or providing information or gauging moods.

“Now I can just be myself and just chase everybody around,” Day said. “To me, I’ve enjoyed doing that. I’ve enjoyed being with the defense and being with the special teams and barking at everybody. But that’s typically how I am in practice. It’s just when you’re in a game, it’s a little bit more difficult to do that. So I have enjoyed that part of it so far.”

Having Chip Kelly upstairs was always going to be the answer that made the most sense, but coaches often choose to do something in a certain manner because that’s how they prefer doing it. Kelly was known as one of the best play callers in college football while standing on the sideline, so clearly he is perfectly fine right there. He was always adamant, however, that the decision on where to be stationed would be about what was best for the team.

With the tablets now part of the game as well, having a clean desk to work with made the decision even easier.

“If you just think about it logistically and practically, you have a desk there, you can put your call sheet here, you can put the tablet over here, you can write things down on a sheet of paper. You just can’t do that when you’re on the sideline,” Day said. “So, I think he enjoys being up there and being organized and it separates yourself from the sideline, allows you to think clearly. It also gives you a really good vantage point from up there what’s going on in a series.”

Ohio State currently leads the Big Ten in scoring (54 ppg), total offense (543.5), and yards per play (7.99).

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