COLUMBUS — Ohio State head coach Ryan Day and a handful of Buckeye players met with the media in Ann Arbor immediately following the 42-27 loss at Michigan.
Here is a summary of what was said.
Ryan Day
+ To work this game 365 days and come up short is a failure.
+ “We didn’t run the ball very well on offense, hurt ourselves with penalties on offense, and we didn’t stop the run on the other side of the ball.” Michigan controlled the game, stayed on schedule, and that was the recipe. “We weren’t able to stop it and that’s disappointing, especially when you knew they were going to do it.” Michigan controlled the game.
+ They let Michigan score at the end otherwise they would have just run out the clock.
+ Both teams have to play with the weather conditions. “We didn’t get the job done today.”
+ “When you’re on schedule and running hard, good things are going to happen.” He has to figure out why they couldn’t do that on their side of the ball, but credits Michigan.
+ Day thought they responded and kept fighting but they couldn’t “turn the tides.” They couldn’t get momentum going and they felt like they could never get the ball back on offense. They forced things too much and then couldn’t establish the run.
+ They threw too much today. But Day felt they had to down the stretch because they weren’t getting much in the run game and had to keep it going.
+ The penalties were really frustrating because it got them off schedule on offense. In the games where they have struggled this season, that is what hurt the offense.
+ They were making progress and growing but in any given week, “if you don’t show up and do it, you can get beat. If you don’t bring it in all areas you can get exposed.”
+ “We did not play our best game today.” When that happens, losing is what happens, especially in a game like this.
+ “It hurts.”
+ “There was so much riding on it and it’s going to leave a mark for a while.” They have to get on the bus and get back to Columbus and figure out what to do. He hasn’t figured out how to move forward yet.
+ “There’s a lot to learn from this but we’re not there yet. This is still fresh.”
SAF Bryson Shaw
+ He made a play on the interception but overall they just didn’t execute, after 365 days of preparing for this. This leaves a bad taste in their mouth.
+ “It’s going to motivate me, it’s going to motivate this team 1000 times more in the offseason.” Shaw is already angry and is ready to get on the film and see what went wrong.
+ Stopping the run was the goal, especially in the Big Ten. Letting Michigan do what they did in the run game was “embarrassing.”
+ They take pride in being disciplined but today was “disappointing.”
+ “We just couldn’t get our stops, it was ridiculous.”
+ Michigan came in with a good plan and they executed. He gives them credit but they just played bad. “It’s going to light a fire.” They came out flat and it hurts.
+”We have tough, hard-working dudes and it sucks.”
+ “Well be back. We’ll be counting down the days until this game next year. And we’ll be ready.”
LB Cody Simon
+ They put in the work to stop Michigan’s offense but they didn’t execute. “We have to get back in the lab and keep going.”
QB C.J. Stroud
+ He poured his heart and soul into this game, they all did. Coming short is not a good feeling.
+ Michigan’s defensive ends had a lot of pressure on him. He tried to get the ball out but sometimes it didn’t work out. The offensive line battled for four quarters, and he is proud of them for that.
+ He always has faith in his offense, no matter what is going on in the game. He has a one-play mentality. They battled and he’s kicking himself for a lot of what happened. He’s super bummed, but is proud of how they all battled to the end.
+ Getting off schedule was tough. Sometimes they bounced back but they put themselves in the hole and beat themselves.
+ He lost his voice earlier in the week and can barely talk. He blames it on himself for not being as loud as he wanted to for his offensive line. He doesn’t know what type of sickness he has but he has been sick all week.
+ “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose” at the end of the day. “But it’s the worst feeling you can possibly have.” He put everything into this, he put his body on the line, everything he could to win this game. He loves this team, loves Ohio State, and Buckeye Nation. He is going to grind everyday.
+ “You try to execute every play and we didn’t do that.”
LT Nicholas Petit-Frere
+ The environment was loud, and “we were not executing.” The line didn’t execute the way they needed to.
+ It was “our fault” as a team and as a unit. It goes back to them not executing when they were on the field. They beat themselves.
+ Hassan Haskins is a great rusher and Michigan has a talented front.
+ They have to learn from this. They prepare, play, and they learn. This is something new, but it’s something they can learn from and overcome.
WR Chris Olave
+ They haven’t been in this position in forever, he doesn’t know what to say. “We have to bounce back and get back to work.”
+ “We could have played way better.”
Someone needs to tell Ryan Day, if your run game isn’t working, get it fixed before the Michigan Game. There were a lot of passes thrown in blowout games that could have been spent refining the run game.
Go iowa!
So much to say.
Place was really loud. Stadium needs more restrooms. Most fans were respectful. Was surprised at this but they were really a beaten down group.
Their fans were deliriously happy after the game. My son said you would have thought they won the Natty. Took me back to Jim Tressel and the victory that started this run and how I felt. I was honestly happy for them in some respect, I guess I had been there and done that! That being said I am fully ready to start a new 10 year run. Kick offs gave them tremendous field position, don’t know what that was about. Holding call on Stroud TD run was abysmal. I knew he would run when the chips were down. I expect several changes on defensive side of the ball. Now we switch to the topic of who is sitting out the bowl games lol..
I hate TSUN and Jim Hairball but I have to give them credit as they wanted this game much more today. Their fans really showed up today and supported their team incredible well. Great atmosphere for college football today. I of course will be rooting for Iowa to kick TSUN butts in the Big Ten Championship.
Rivalry like this to keep it interesting both teams need to win. I am old so I am actually happy if we win 6 out of every 10 of these games. I remember the Earl Bruce and John Cooper years all too well.
Never happy with a loss but I can accept our Buckeyes losing. I can accept a loss if we give our best effort.
I am sorry but I just did not see our best effort today from the players or the coaches. If you are not ready to play and coach in The Game there are major problems. I do not remember one hard hit from our players.
Way too many mental mistakes.
Were we playing against Tom Brady in his prime ? We sure coached like we were. TSUN only passed the ball 4 times in the second half and we had zero tackles for loss this game. Anyone recall seeing 5 defensive linemen in the game at the same time? Even in goal line or 3rd and short? Not one time! We could not stop the run and never did our coaches go with 5 linemen to help them out and make TSUN alter their game plan and try to beat us with the pass. We had zero defensive stops in the second half. I am not saying we would have won but my friends and I said we had to do this a week before the game to have a chance to win.
In the Purdue game if our offense would not have been so incredible and Purdue have some turnovers they would have hung over 60 on this defense. We all watched issues over and over again with our defense this season and our coaching staff did nothing different for The Game. I did not see DT Williams or DE Sawyer get one snap this game.
All season we were told that we had 6 offensive line starters so why not have all 6 of them on the field at the same time? I believe Tressel did this one season. Mumford can play multiple positions so let him play TE, and we were not throwing the ball to our TEs anyway.
Special teams bad coverage on kickoffs and no kicker with strong enough leg to make it to the end zone and our kick returner was totally clueless.
We recruit at an elite level but the talent is not being coached up especially on defense. Our defensive coaching staff needs to be gutted. We bring in 4 and 5 star linebackers and our best linebacker is a running back. I know college is a lot different than high school ball but why do our linebackers forget how to fill running gaps when they get to campus.
I hope we get Clemson or Alabama in a bowl game.
To leave on a positive note. Our 3 WRs are just incredible. All of them played well this game and all season and all 3 of them had an incredible catch this game.
GO Bucks lets train up the young guys and go win our bowl game.
Blame the coaches if you want, but when you are consistently beaten at the line of scrimmage and players make matters worse with mental mistakes, scheme becomes meaningless.
We got Dominated on both sides of the line of scrimmage. I’m not sure a d lineman even made A play in this game. Throw in the typical offensive mental mistakes and some very questionable play calling at times and you get a big fat L.
Totally agree with Kurt Mews and Tom above. Both defense and offense needs to do much better. Need a play caller. We are just standing there waiting for the call from the sidelines. Defense looked like they did in the OR game. Start from scratch. Have six months to get it done. Love our Bucks but disappointed with this year.
I agree with you Kurt, they need an NFL defensive minded coach like Michigan got for a coordinator and they need a good play calling offensive coordinator like Michigan has,things need fixed!
Tom is spot on. Harbough reevaluated everything including getting an NFL experienced D coach who could adjust on the fly. MI seemed to be very well prepared and played an effective and efficient game and OSU had no response. It’s now Day’s turn to reevaluate everything, if not expect more of the same and even worse as the recipe is out how to dismantle OSU. One correction, keep our DL coach, all else need to be shown the door this week.
Tomorrow, Ryan Day needs to let that entire D coaching staff go. Even though MI stacked the OL, our D was stagnant and refused to make any adjustments. Our D coaching philosophy went back in time to the OR game and replayed it. MI wanted this game much more than OSU and it showed, both of our lines were dominated or better stated, ‘battered!’