Ryan Day takes part in his weekly radio show Thursday afternoon. He will look back a bit on last Saturday’s win over Cincinnati and also look ahead to this week’s game at Indiana. The show will begin at 12:00 pm and Day will show up shortly after the show begins. We will provide highlights as they happen. Refresh for all of the latest updates over the next hour.
Complete Ryan Day Updates
+ Mondays are days off for the team, so a lot of players will spend their time in community outreach, be it at hospitals or homeless shelters or whatever. It’s important to them and the program. There are several members of the team who wanted to make sure this is a weekly thing.
+ While Kyric McDonald was down with his seizure last week, Luke Fickell told Day that this has happened before and that he was expected to be fine, so Day relayed that to his team while they were watching on the sideline to ease their concerns.
+ Al Washington has done a great job of demanding toughness and sure tackling. They’ve gotten that from the linebackers so far this season. “Now we gotta keep that rolling.” You can’t just do that over the first few games. You look at how big and strong Malik Harrison is, then you add in how tough he is and now you’ve got something special.
+ Shaun Wade “is really good.” He played a good game last week.
+ Garrett Wilson had his best week of practice this week. When you’re a talented freshman, you can only get away with it for so long. He’s learning now what it takes to play college receiver. His ability is off the charts and he has a very, very high ceiling.
+ Special teams coach Matt Barnes teaches that every skill they use in special teams can be applied and used at their position, so even while they’re working on special teams they are still able to increase their skills at their respective positions. He shows them film of proof of what they are doing on special teams applies to their positions.
+ They spend a lot of time on special teams in practice. There’s a lot that goes into it. You can lose a game if you give up a punt block. Everybody is involved except for the quarterbacks. “We think that can be a huge advantage for us.”
+ They don’t lean on Kevin Wilson as much as they have in the past for scouting reports on the Indiana personnel because he’s been gone for so long now.
+ Indiana’s offense is a little different from the past. They have two really good quarterbacks who can do different things.
+ IU’s offense does a lot of pre-snap movement. How will the defense react to it? The offense is trying to create confusion, so you have to figure out how you’ll make those adjustments. Depending on what the call is, you know which adjustment to use.
+ The young guys on defense fought all the way to the end last week, which was better than they showed the week before.
+ Gunnar Hoak and Chris Chugunov have picked up the offense. Hoak will catch up as time goes on.
+ Day prefers to have his quarterbacks wear knee braces on their lead legs, but Justin Fields doesn’t like to wear one. He’s a little bit more mobile than Dwayne Haskins, so they aren’t forcing him to wear one.
+ Master Teague is running hard. He’s doing a good job of running on contact and carrying guys a couple of yards downfield. He’s put together a couple weeks of practice and he’s going to play more this week.
+ Day went back and watched some of the Indiana game in 2017 and saw JK Dobbins running hard in that game. OSU pulled away late. You may have seen it.
+ Day said he learned last week that defensive holding isn’t an automatic first down unless the football is thrown.
+ When you bunch receivers together, it affects the drops of defense in both zone or man, and when you throw in some play-action it affects the defense even more. They have worked well for the Buckeyes this year.
+ Day expects a good mix of blitzing from Indiana. They do a good job of executing and they have good players on defense at Indiana.
+ Day likes this defense and the special teams, so if they can control the ball more this year on offense, they can be really stifling. They have to continue running the ball well, especially when they have two tight ends in. That can be changed up depending on what defenses are doing. Cincinnati blitzed more, so there were fewer two tight end sets.
+ On Fridays, they’ll watch movies before bed or games. Bed check is around 9 or 9:30 for noon games. Lights out. It’s their best night of sleep of the week. Sleep is very important, especially on Fridays.
+ Buckeyes got a lot of pressure last week and they were physical, but they played under control on both sides of the ball.
+ They got push last week in field goal block with Dawand Jones pushing and Chase Young sneaking in. The goal this year is to block five kicks. Any time you block a kick you can return that for a touchdown possibly.
+ Ohio State has the best punt team in America. That’s all part of the plan to win. It’s playing downhill.
