COLUMBUS, Ohio — From ‘hang 100’ to barely hanging on, it’s getting rough out there for the Ohio State football coach. Yes, he’s fielded a stellar, mostly elite team in his six years at the helm of the Buckeyes. But just one problem — and it’s a big one.
He can’t seem to beat Michigan.
Now 1-4 against his rival Wolverines, Day is searching for answers seemingly in all the wrong places. Saturday was supposed to be a cakewalk, a coronation, a return to normalcy for the Buckeyes against the maize and blue. However, it went a very different way as Michigan ended up winning, 13-10.
After the game, Day had to face the music. Here’s much of what he had to say in his postgame press conference.
Doral Chenoweth-The Columbus Dispatch
Yeah, well, I think we, we struggled to run the ball in this game. We know we’ve talked about this many times. We have to run the ball, especially in this game. You know, it was a little windy out and, you know, in order to win the game, you got to be able to run it. We weren’t able to do that. Tried a couple different schemes, couldn’t quite get into a rhythm on that and that, ultimately, along with the turnovers and the missed field goals, which was the difference in the game
Photo: Isaiah Hole
I’m just fresh off the game right now, and obviously extremely disappointed, and angry that we didn’t execute well enough. So, I’m not there right now, just fresh off the game. But, as you as you know this is not easy to accept, and, obviously have to take the ownership. I’m the one ultimately that makes the final decisions on things. And, felt like we were in a really good place coming into this game. I felt like we were prepared to play well in this game. And, I think you could see maybe some of the stuff that happened in the offensive line and shuffling things around ended up really coming to a head today. Some of those guys have to look at the film and figure it out, but we just couldn’t seem to get through to the second level on some runs. And, led to some frustration. And then, again, I thought guys were into it even all the way to the end.
It’s a great play by Jack on the goal line. Just unbelievable effort right there to give the offense a chance. But, go three and out, and it was fourth-and-1 in our red zone. I just felt like at that point, we had to punt it, because if you don’t get it there, the game’s probably, really in the balance. So, yeah, I don’t know much more to say about it.
Adam Cairns-The Columbus Dispatch
I don’t know, but then I can just kinda go off of this game and what’s going on in this game right now. I think each game is a little bit different and unique to itself, like you said, but the results, the results, and — as hard as that is to say, we came up short here again today. And, not easy to swallow at all.
Photo: Isaiah Hole
No, I mean, they had a couple runs in there. They escaped on one of the a couple scrambles that kept them on schedule. I thought the defense kept fighting their tails off, and kept competing, though. And you know when you’re not getting as much momentum on offense, it can kind of wear in your defense a little bit. And I think that’s probably more than anything what happened. But I thought they continued to fight the entire game.
Adam Cairns-The Columbus Dispatch
I mean, everybody wants to win this game in a worst way, and nobody wants to win it more than we do, and it’s our No. 1 goal every year. And so when you don’t do that, there’s disappointment and frustration. And so, I don’t blame anybody for being upset. I’m upset more than anybody. And those players are too, and the coaches and everybody that goes at it. So I mean, we know we’re getting ourselves into here.
Photo: Isaiah Hole
Yeah. Well, you know, I guess we ended up throwing at the end of the game 33 times out of — I don’t know how many plays we had, 59? So there were more passes than runs. But you can’t just abandon the run. You have to be able to control the ball. Because, as we know, and you throw the ball, and it was, it was windy today, and we didn’t have a ton of time back there in terms of protection, so we tried to be smart about that without, again, we had a good plan in the pass game going in, but ultimately it wasn’t good enough to execute it. But yeah, I mean, those are all things you talk about, and make sure you’re doing the best you can.
Photo: Isaiah Hole
Yeah, I don’t know all the details of it, but I know that these guys are looking to put a flag on our field, and our guys weren’t going to let that happen. So I’ll find out exactly what happened. But this is our field, and certainly, we’re embarrassed with the fact that we lost the game. But there’s some prideful guys in this team that weren’t just gonna let that happen.
