Dave Portnoy got pulled off Big Noon Kickoff, and before he'd even read the report, he had a culprit and a nickname for him. He blamed Ryan Day, started calling him "Cryin Ryan," and the story fell apart in his very next tweet.
Portnoy and Barstool are off FOX's college football pregame show after a little more than a year on it. That much is confirmed, and it's everywhere. Everything else comes from Portnoy himself.
And his own account can't hold still. He first posted that "Ohio State and Ryan Day bitched and moaned to the Big Ten and threatened Fox till they had no choice," admitting in the same breath that he hadn't read the report yet and nobody had called him for a quote. Then, in the follow-up, he quietly walked it back: "I do not blame Ryan Day for me getting fired from WEEI, ESPN, or banned from the NFL. However he very certainly got me fired from @BNKonFOX." So in the span of a few hours, Day went from threatening a network to very certainly getting him fired. That's a man repeating what he wants to be true.
Neither Ohio State nor FOX has confirmed any of it. As of Saturday morning both have declined to comment. That leaves the entire "Day lobbied the Big Ten and leaned on FOX" narrative resting on one source: the guy who got let go.
What actually happened looks far less cinematic. No single incident triggered it. FOX's traditional pregame show never fit cleanly with Barstool's persona, and that became unworkable. Ohio State friction played a role too, mostly because Portnoy, a Michigan alum and booster, has clashed before over his presence at Ohio State home games. That's a long way from Ryan Day running a personal campaign to get him off TV.
We've seen this movie before. Before last season's Ohio State opener against Texas, Portnoy claimed the school banned him from the stadium. Ohio State denied it flat out, and athletic director Ross Bjork said on the record it was FOX's call, that Portnoy wasn't part of the main-desk crew and so wasn't inside. Same accusation, same school, publicly disputed by name. One bad experience is a grievance. Two identical ones is a reflex.
The honest explanation is the less dramatic one: FOX's traditional approach and Barstool's persona never quite fit together, and FOX moved on. That's a tough thing to tweet about yourself, so Day became the story instead. A coach who spends his Saturdays trying to win games doesn't need to get dragged into a media-contract decision he had no vote in just because losing it quietly is less fun than losing it loudly.
The show carries on with Urban Meyer, Matt Leinart, Brady Quinn, Mark Ingram II and host Rob Stone, and nobody at that desk needed to threaten anyone to still be there. Ryan Day just happens to be the name Portnoy reaches for every time somebody tells him he's done.
