There aren’t too many players out there who can say they played for two of the most successful college football coaches over the last couple of decades. However, Ohio State safety Caleb Downs is one of them.
Downs chose to commit to Alabama over Ohio State when he came out of high school and spent his first college season becoming a Freshman All-American in Tuscaloosa under Nick Saban. But then, after that year, arguably the greatest coach in college football history retired, and Downs entered the transfer portal, eventually landing in Columbus to play for Ryan Day. At that point, Day had one whale of a winning percentage, but had yet to hoist the College Football Playoff national championship trophy had been so close to winning in previous seasons.
Advertisement
But that was taken care of last year after Ohio State went on the greatest postseason run in college football history by beating several top ten teams en route to the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff. Downs is now back for another year under Day and should have another fantastic season before heading off to the NFL.
His first two years have provided Downs with a perspective on the differences between two national championship-winning coaches that he was happy to share with DJ Siddiqi of RG. When asked about Saban, Downs clearly still has respect and admiration for him. He was happy to share his perspective with RG.
“He (Saban) was the most consistent person that I’ve ever met,” says Downs of Saban in a one-on-one interview with RG. “He was the same person every day, and that’s something that I acknowledged, and I learned from him. Just watching how he operated is a key piece to success. Just making sure every day, you put your best foot forward and you go in with the intention to be the best, and with the mindset ‘I’m going to do everything the right way so I can be in the best position.'”
One might wonder what made Downs decide to transfer to Ohio State. According to him, it came down to a path he wanted to blaze and the people he wanted to do it with when Saban rode off into the sunset.
“I wanted to be a part of a culture and people that are like-minded to me, and they had a lot of great people that I knew from recruitment,” Downs told RG. “They had a couple of players that I knew, a lot of coaches that I knew. I knew it was a good situation coming into and then I knew that they had a lot of returning players and a lot of hungry guys that were eager to win. I knew we would have at least a chance to go do something special, which we did.”
Advertisement
Once Downs got to Ohio State, the defense continued to get better and better with him as the focal point, so much so that the Buckeyes finished as the No. 1 defensive unit in several categories during the 2024 season. Ohio State had a good defensive coordinator with Jim Knowles calling the shots, but it was Day that he gained respect and admiration for, just like Saban, but for different reasons. Asked what makes Day tick by RG, Downs points to how he treats people.
“Just caring about your players and knowing them intimately, caring about them off the field is something that I’ve learned from him,” said Downs. “It’s not always do this, do that. It’s, ‘Hey, can I get your guys’ opinion on this? How can we grow better together?’ That type of vibe, and I feel like that’s a special thing as a coach, not always being like, ‘I have to be the one that does everything.’ To be able to say, ‘Hey, my players may have some input, and I’m going to take the input and see what we can do it.'”
To Downs, playing for two superpowers in college football wasn’t about expectations being different, but the means to the end and how both head coaches did things. Not that one was better than the other, but just how they both went about reaching similar goals.
Advertisement
“I would say the two biggest differences for me is just the way that the coaches run the program,” said Downs. “It’s just a different philosophy. The standard is the same and the expectation is the same — that you win every game and that you go out and dominate every play. But the means of how you do it is different, so I would say that’s the biggest thing. The differences is how the head man wants to run the program.”
Downs will start his third season in college football when he begins his second season under Day on August 30 vs. Texas. It should be another great one for the player considered to be the best defender in college football.
Contact/Follow us @BuckeyesWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Ohio State news, notes and opinion. Follow Phil Harrison on X.
This article originally appeared on Buckeyes Wire: Ohio State safety Caleb Downs discusses Ryan Day vs. Nick Saban
