Social media hijacks Ohio State Texas game with odd Ryan Day moment

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Jeremy Lockett | Last updated Aug 31, 2025 12:41 AM ET

Ryan Day has no shortage of pressure this season. That may sound absurd when you remember the Ohio State head coach is fresh off winning the 2024 national championship,

The Buckeyes began their title defense in Columbus against top-ranked Texas in what many called the biggest game of Week 1.

Ohio State entered ranked No. 3, and the first half storyline was the surprising struggles of Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning, who was bottled up by the Buckeyes defense and went into halftime trailing 7-0.

Ohio State Coach Goes Viral

But the buzz online wasn’t about the defense, or even Manning’s shaky play. Instead, social media locked onto something completely unexpected: a photo of Ryan Day on the sideline that had fans speculating whether the Buckeyes head coach has…a nipple piercing.

If Ryan Day is a nipple piercing guy I think I’d actually respect him. Would be such a psycho move pic.twitter.com/Z2d6uKLwwF
— Big Cat (@BarstoolBigCat) August 30, 2025

The image, shared and reshared within minutes, showed what looked like a small protrusion beneath Day’s shirt. Theories quickly took off. Some joked that Day had made a wild bet with his team during their championship run, while others insisted he might just be “a piercing guy.”

Regardless of the truth, it was enough to dominate football Twitter during the game. The memes, the jokes, and the disbelief poured in.

And while Day’s focus is on Texas and eventually Michigan, the internet proved again that nothing in college football escapes the microscope—not even the head coach’s wardrobe quirks.

For fans online, the only question that mattered in the moment was a stranger one: does Ryan Day really have his nipple pierced?

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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