Why Ryan Day channeling Nick Saban, Kirby Smart should terrify the rest of college football

Two days. That's all Nick Saban took to relish in Alabama's national championship win over Notre Dame to conclude the 2012 season, the third of six titles and second straight he captured during his illustrious tenure with the Crimson Tide.

With fresh turf still stuck to the bottom of his shoe and confetti raining down, Saban could barely savor victory at the highest level. It was all about the next task, the next obstacle or the next opponent. Saban's "48-hour rule" rubbed off on then-Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart, who embodies the same maniacal approach at Georgia and has won multiple national titles as a result.

This is what makes Ohio State coach Ryan Day's recent revelation that he felt little to no emotion the morning after the Buckeyes' triumphant win over the Fighting Irish in January all the more frightening for the rest of college football.

"I thought it would feel different, it didn't ... it didn't," Day said. "It felt great, but it didn't take long to be like, 'Alright, what's the next thing? Were we going next?' We've got a lot of work to do. There's no time for resting. We've got to keep building this thing, keep growing."

This is what happens when winning trumps all at a historic program and death threats morph into praise.

Day's won six straight games against top-10 teams since running out of time on the road at Oregon last season, reversing his personal course against elite competition to be one of the game's ascending greats in the profession.

If pressure is a privilege once you've scaled the summit, maintaining permanent camp is the hard part. Looking back, there are nuggets of intel Day can gleam from others at the pinnacle of the sport who, like him, have found themselves in the middle of the playoff's final post-game platform.

"Our job changes as coaches (after winning a championship), we've got to do a tremendous job explaining to our kids how to win close to the top," Smart said after Georgia beat Alabama for his first title at the end of the 2021 campaign. "I've seen it first hand, it is not easy. As you climb that mountain, it is windy up there."

Ohio State is CBS Sports' No. 1 team in the post-spring rankings and it's easy to see why. The Buckeyes landed a top-five signing class for the sixth consecutive offseason under Day and return arguably the two best players in the country on both sides of the football in wideout Jeremiah Smith and safety Caleb Downs.

Furthermore, Ohio State has no time to rest on last season's laurels as Texas comes to Columbus for one of the nation's most-anticipated showdowns of opening weekend. The Buckeyes are the betting favorites to win the Big Ten (+210), via FanDuel Sportsbook, and should be a leading threat to be a top seed in the playoff.

For Day, he's one of only two active coaches nationally with at least six straight top-10 finishes. And it only takes one guess to pick the other. Cut from a similar cloth as Smart, there's no taking the foot off the gas for Day leading the sport into 2025.

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