Tag: Ross Bjork

Ohio State University football coach Ryan Day talks with the media Wednesday, December 4, 2024 after the devastating loss to Michigan for the fourth straight year. The news conference was held in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center football team meeting room in Columbus.

Ohio State AD: Ryan Day ‘absolutely’ back in 2025

Posted on | by Field Level Media

Ahead of Ohio State’s appearance in the College Football Playoff, head coach Ryan Day received a vote of confidence from his athletic director despite the Buckeyes’ latest loss to Michigan.

Ohio State AD Ross Bjork appeared on 97.1 The Fan in Columbus on Thursday, where a radio host asked him whether Day would be the Buckeyes’ coach at the start of next season regardless of how the playoffs shake out.

“Absolutely,” said Bjork, who came to Ohio State from the same role at Texas A&M in July.

“Coach Day and I have just hit it off so well. I’ve been really, really impressed. Every single time I’ve talked to him, I’ve learned something. He’s innovative. He recruits at the highest level. He’s got a great staff. There’s always tweaks. There was tweaks after last year, right? You’re always going to tweak things. You’re always going to make adjustments. You’re always going to make improvements.”

Bjork continued by addressing the “championship or bust” attitude held by some of the fanbase.

“This whole mentality about — and look, we live it, and we sign up for it — but if you get fixated on the end result and not have the process fully baked every time, you’re going to lose,” Bjork said. “The mindset’s going to lose because you’re only fixated on one thing. And so what we have to do is this whole ‘championship or bust’ mentality, you want that as the goal, but it has to be about the process.

“To me, we’ve got to maybe change some conversations a little bit. I think we need to maybe just approach things a little bit differently.”

Day is 66-10 as Ohio State’s coach and led the Buckeyes to one national championship game appearance, a 52-24 loss to Alabama to cap the 2020 season.

Ohio State went 10-2 in the regular season but missed out on a place in the Big Ten championship game when rival Michigan defeated the Buckeyes 13-10 on Nov. 30. It was Michigan’s fourth straight win in The Game, and Day is now 1-4 as a head coach against the Wolverines.

At the time, Bjork released a statement of support for Day, and he doubled down during Thursday’s radio hit.

“He’s great to work with. He totally gets it. He loves being a Buckeye, and so we’re going to support him at the highest level throughout,” Bjork said. “But here’s the thing too, and the reason why we needed to say something after that game is we’re still breathing. They’re still alive. The season’s not over. The book is not closed, right? And so we’ve got to have confidence. I mean, Ohio State should be confident every single day. We’re Ohio State.

“But we also have to make sure we stay to our values and we stick to what we believe in. And so to me, it’s the process as much as it is about the end result.”

–Field Level Media

Jan 17, 2024; Columbus, OH, USA; Ross Bjork speaks during an introductory press conference for Ohio State University s new athletic director at the Covelli Center.

New Ohio State AD Ross Bjork predicts football titles

Posted on | by Field Level Media

Ohio State introduced new athletic director Ross Bjork on Wednesday, and one of the first things he did was give football coach Ryan Day a vote of confidence.

The university hired Bjork, 51, on Tuesday. He has been at the helm of the athletic department at Texas A&M since July 2019 and previously was the athletic director at Ole Miss and Western Kentucky.

Contract terms were not revealed.

Bjork will take over on July 1, replacing retiring athletic director Gene Smith. Until then, he undoubtedly will have his eyes on the football Buckeyes and Day, who was in the audience.

“I’m a football guy. I’m going to help and I’m going to make sure that, again, we compete at the highest level because the pedigree is here,” said Bjork, who went on to predict College Football Playoff titles in the future.

“This guy right here, Coach Day, he’s going to get it done,” Bjork said. “And it’s going to be a lot of fun when we win those championships.”

Day has a 56-8 record at Ohio State, which includes three games he filled in for a suspended Urban Meyer in 2018. He succeeded Meyer the following season.

His resume, however, includes three straight losses to rival Michigan and a 2-4 mark in bowl games.

A Kansas native who played football at Emporia State, Bjork fit the qualifications new Ohio State president Ted Carter recently said the school was looking for — extensive big school experience.

A blemish on Bjork’s record is the contract he gave to football coach Jimbo Fisher that left the school holding the bag for $77 million when Fisher was fired last fall. Carter said that situation was reviewed with Bjork during the hiring process and that he “owned it.”

Hiroyuki Fujita, chair of Ohio State’s board of trustees, echoed the need to bring in someone like Bjork.

“The college athletics landscape is changing each day, and Ohio State was firmly committed to finding an athletics director who would lead us with confidence and innovative thinking into the future,” Fujita said. “Ross Bjork possesses all the qualities we had envisioned — and more — and I am thrilled to welcome him to our Buckeye family.”

–Field Level Media

Oct. 14, 2023; Lafayette, In., USA; Gloves lie on top of the helmet of Ohio State Buckeyes wide receiver Julian Fleming (4) before Saturday's NCAA Division I football game against the Purdue Boilermakers at Ross-Ade Stadium in Lafayette.

Reports: Ohio State to name Ross Bjork next AD

Posted on | by Field Level Media

Ohio State is expected to name Ross Bjork, the athletic director at Texas A&M, to the same position, multiple outlets reported Monday.

Gene Smith, who is retiring in June, has been athletic director in Columbus since 2005.

A Kansas native who played football at Emporia State, Bjork, 51, has been at the helm at Texas A&M since July 2019. He previously was the athletic director at Ole Miss and Western Kentucky.

The Ohio State trustees must approve the hiring.

In a recent interview with The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio State’s new president, Ted Carter, said experience was a must for the new athletic director given the complexities of college athletics, including conference realignment and NIL issues.

“We need to hire somebody that is not learning on the job,” Carter said. “(They) have to come in with a whole lot of experience, understand the challenges that are out in front of us, be able to make certainly hard decisions — because there will be some hard decisions coming up.”

–Field Level Media

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Sep 23, 2023; Knoxville, Tennessee, USA; UTSA Roadrunners head coach Jeff Traylor before the game between the Tennessee Volunteers and the UTSA Roadrunners at Neyland Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports

Report: UTSA coach Jeff Traylor interviews at Texas A&M

Posted on | by Field Level Media

UTSA head coach Jeff Traylor interviewed for the vacant position at Texas A&M, the Austin American-Statesman reported.

Per the report, he interviewed by Zoom with athletic director Ross Bjork in a call that lasted 90 minutes earlier this week.

Bjork is leading the search to replace Jimbo Fisher, who was fired last Sunday with $77 million remaining on his contract. Fisher was in his sixth season and had a 45-25 with the Aggies but had failed to reach the upper echelon of college football, as was expected.

Texas A&M was 11-11 under Fisher the past two seasons.

Traylor, 55, has spent most of his career in his native Texas.

He won three Class 4A state high school championships at his alma mater, Gilmer High School. He had a 175-28 record at Gilmer from 2000-14.

Traylor has made a meteoric rise in the college coaching ranks since being hired as an assistant coach at Texas in 2015. He spent two seasons with the Longhorns, followed by one season at SMU and two at Arkansas before being hired by UTSA prior to the 2020 season.

UTSA is 37-13 in Traylor’s tenure and has appeared in three bowl games, all losses. The Roadrunners are 7-3 and 6-0 in the American Athletic Conference this season, tied atop the league with No. 24 Tulane and SMU.

–Field Level Media