It has been a long time coming but an Ohio State head football coach has finally broken through and won the coach of the year award as Ryan Day was named the Dave McClain Coach of the Year by the conference media on Tuesday night.

He shares the coach of the year award with Minnesota’s PJ Fleck who won the coaches version of the award, the Hayes-Schembechler Coach of the Year award.

All Day has done this year is lead his Buckeyes to a 12-0 record after taking over from Urban Meyer last year. Ohio State was picked as low as third in the Big Ten East by some prognosticators as the Buckeyes were faced with not only a new head coach but many new players on a team that won the Big Ten a year prior and went on to win the Rose Bowl in Meyer’s first game.

Day is now 15-0 as the head coach of the Buckeyes when you add in the three wins he had last year serving in Meyer’s place during a three-game suspension to start the season. The Buckeyes are just a win away from going in essence, 10-0 in the Big Ten after running a nine-game conference slate to start the year and facing Wisconsin for a second time in the Big Ten Championship Game on Saturday.

Day is the first Ohio State Coach of the Year winner since 1979 when Earle Bruce won the award. It is hard to believe that neither Meyer nor Jim Tressel ever won the award, despite both winning national championships with the Buckeyes, but it is true.