Ohio State head coach Ryan Day takes a valuable message away from watching Netflix's Dinosaur Documentary: adapt or die.
Ryan Day's press conferences can go one of two ways, depending on his mood. If he is locked in and serious, you don't get much. If he is in a good mood, he will open up a little bit and get the room laughing a bit.
This week was the latter as he went on a little tangent that only happens in Spring Ball. He was explaining that he has gotten the opportunity over the past couple of weeks to go on a few visits with his son to some colleges.
On his trips, he turned on the Netflix Dinosaur documentary, and without getting into the mind-tangling fact that they were on planet earth 250 million years ago, the point he was making is that over time, the earth changed, and some dinosaurs adapted and lived, the others didn't, and they died.
Simple as that.
He acknowledged that the example was pretty extreme, probably too extreme for an April press conference, but the point is true. In this era of college football, you must adapt, or you will die.
There is also a life lesson in there somewhere, but in terms of college football, that is absolutely the truth on many different levels. It's true when it comes to personnel, Xs and Os, recruiting, and now the transfer portal and NIL world.
Coaches, players, and teams must adapt to the environment, no matter how uncertain or confusing it all may feel. If you don't adapt, you die.
The Buckeyes have done that, and at the start, were one of the teams that were at the forefront of new changes and successfully navigating while stress testing new ways to survive.
Some ideas worked, and some didn't, but they are out there trying to survive in this new world.
Now entering this year, they made a clear change in their program. They let a lot of very talented young players go to bring in guys who are probably less talented but are veterans and have played a ton of football.
The Indiana Hoosier used this blueprint last year, and now the Buckeyes are playing a little bit of copycat, and guess what, that's OK.
Football is a copycat world, and the Buckeyes are just adapting to the new environment. If they don't do it, they may not die, but they will struggle to find consistent success in this new CFB world.
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