Buy-In Of Ohio State’s New-Look 2026 Roster Is A Product Of Ryan Day’s Passion, Brotherhood And New Era Of College Football

It’s hard to miss, especially when the team is in that room every day. What’s also hard to ignore is that six of Ohio State’s 12 regular-season opponents feature squads ranked in the AP Poll, three of which are in the top six — No. 2 Oregon, No. 5 Texas and No. 6 Indiana.

“There’s a board right over there that has them all on there,” starting center Carson Hinzman said Tuesday, pointing to the schedule in the team meeting room. “So obviously you see it every time you come in the room and stuff like that. We have it all in our rooms. There’s a lot of big games on there. We got to go and win. So I wouldn’t say it’s not talked about at all. I mean, it’s obviously a thing we got to do, but we also got to take this one game at a time, and right now it’s Ball State.”

Right now, it is Ball State, as the 2026 campaign starts with the Cardinals coming to Columbus on Saturday for a 12:30 pm. kickoff at Ohio Stadium, with the game being televised on the Big Ten Network. 

But this year’s squad looks a lot different than past Ohio State teams, with over 50 new faces from transfer portal additions and freshmen. What hasn’t changed, however, is the chemistry among teammates.

When safety Earl Little Jr. transferred to Ohio State this offseason, it marked his third team in five years, as he started his career at Alabama and most recently played at Florida State. When he arrived in Columbus, he felt the cohesiveness right away. 

“It’s definitely real here. I mean, you feel that,” Little said Tuesday. “All dudes are bought in. Brotherhood, it’s something that you have to feel in the locker room, and I feel like we have a great brotherhood here.”

He was asked if he thinks an Ohio State-like brotherhood is common throughout college football. Little made it clear he wasn’t saying anything negative about his previous programs, but also said the chemistry Ohio State has isn’t as common as one might think.

“At different places, I’m not pointing anybody out, but you have a lot of dudes that were worried about different kinds of things,” Little said. “And now that NIL is taking place or taking a big step — you have a lot of dudes on the team worrying about a whole bunch of non-factors or things that have nothing to do with football.”

Little said the goals from within the Woody Hayes Athletic Center are easily outlined to every Ohio State team year after year — beat Michigan, win a Big Ten championship and win a national title. 

If you ask any player what their personal goals are, most of the time their answer starts with the aforementioned team goals before diving into what’s in store for themselves. It doesn’t matter if they’ve been with the Buckeyes for the entirety of their collegiate career, or if they joined the program during the last transfer portal window.

It’s the culture that’s ingrained that makes the chemistry as strong as Little said it was, making it easy for fresh faces to feel acclimated. Defensive tackle John Walker, who transferred to Ohio State this offseason from UCF, was a top target for the Buckeyes out of high school, and he said nothing has changed since his initial recruiting process.

“Nothing’s surprising me, because I’ve been here since I got up (to Columbus) from high school, so I already knew everything they had pretty much thrown at me,” Walker said in the middle of August. “So when I came up here (when I was in the transfer portal), it was pretty much like a revisit from high school. Everything was good with the coaches and everything.”

As Walker put it, he didn’t need to drink the Kool-Aid, as he’s “been drinking the Kool-Aid.”

At the forefront of it all is Ryan Day, who has embraced Ohio State and the Columbus community since he joined the program and has felt his affection grow stronger and stronger. And the love and passion from Day have him well-equipped to handle his new-look roster, because, well, it’s the new era of college football, so he has to.

He learned a lesson via a Netflix documentary called “The Dinosaurs” as he killed time traveling with his son, RJ, who committed to play quarterback at Northwestern, during his recruiting process.

“If you want to feel insignificant, watch that because it talks about how the dinosaurs were on Earth like 250 million years ago,” Day said in the spring. “Throughout time, it got all the way to like 65 million years ago. Over that 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.”

But Day has made it clear he’s not in it alone. Matt Patricia, who enters his second year as the defensive coordinator, and Arthur Smith, who is in his first year as offensive coordinator, both give the Buckeyes pro-level insight with their NFL backgrounds. 

It gives Day that CEO role to keep tabs on all elements of the program, but he can also take a step back and let his new coordinators show why they were highly touted additions. It doesn’t stem just from Patricia and Smith, however, as Day has praised the first-year additions of special teams coordinator Robby Discher from Illinois and wide receivers coach Cortez Hankton from LSU, who has the tall task of replacing Brian Hartline and the production and recruiting prowess that came from his room. 

“It’s my responsibility to make sure I’m doing the things that the head coach is supposed to do,” Day said in the middle of August. “And having great people on staff allows me to do that. And I feel good that we have an excellent staff. I think the camaraderie’s good, and the players feed off of the staff.”

The staff reciprocates that appreciation for Day.

“(Arthur and I) are just so blessed and lucky to be here at Ohio State with coach Day, who brought us both in from the NFL and let us get that joy of coaching and watching him,” Patricia said mid-August.

Ohio State’s roster is different than in the past. Bringing in over 50 new players hasn’t exactly been normal. But with the way college football is trending, it very well might become the new normal for the Buckeyes, or at least maybe something close to it.

What’s normal is changing, but what won’t change for Ohio State is the character expected from those repping the scarlet and gray, whether you are part of the program for your whole college career or just a season. 

With a gauntlet of a schedule ahead, the new-look Buckeyes will rely on each other to go as far as they want to go, and it starts with the brotherhood and their love of football, which is exactly how the 2026 roster was cultivated.

“We might have 100 practices, might have thousands of hours plus going up to the offseason, but only have 12 guaranteed chances to go show what we’ve worked so hard for,” Hinzman said. “And so within those 12 chances, we have a great opportunity to go show how good we can be.”