COLUMBUS — Ohio State head coach Ryan Day will take to the podium at 12:00 pm today to answer questions from reporters. He is expected to speak again about Saturday’s win at Indiana, as well as this week’s upcoming game against Miami (Ohio). We will provide like updates once the session gets underway. Refresh for all of the newness.
+ Chris Olave has been off the charts in production over his last six games, and that’s the way he practices. He knows what he’s doing. He takes the job very seriously. Any time you practice really well, you gain confidence from the guys around you. When you do it in practice and there is belief, that makes a big impact in the game.
+ Day has seen Justin Fields grow as a leader. The team respects him. They see him accept responsibility for plays that don’t work on offense.
+ A great coach can make corrections and show players where they need to improve without belittling them.
+ What needs to be cleaned up? Alignment, assignment, execution, and fundamentals. They are playing tough and fast, which is what they want. Then they go back and clean up the techniques and fundamentals.
+ The young guys on defense are all swarming to the ball. Josh Proctor has been in the right spot to make plays. Those will come because he is in the right spots.
+ It’s not relief to see Master Teague to get going. Day calls it excitement. They’ve been wanting to see him healthy and he did and it has been exciting to see. Now he needs to get better and assert himself.
+ If you’re the best in America, you’ve got to show that every week. If you’re a surgeon, there are no small surgeries.
+ Fields is a low-key guy. Day tells all of his quarterbacks that they have to be themselves. They have to be who they are. The quarterbacks they’ve had the last three years were all very different. They all need to lead and they build leadership in all of their quarterbacks.
+ There is nothing about Justin Fields’ throwing motion that would cause him to throw the ball high. Most of the time with young quarterbacks, it’s a long stride which causes the elbow to drop and the ball to rise.
+ He hasn’t been surprised by Justin Fields this season. “He can take a meeting to the field.” He doesn’t take a lot of reps to get something down. They are doing more stuff now in terms of variety than they’ve ever done, and for Fields to handle that is pretty strong.
+ Arm strength is like saying somebody has the longest drive. It’s not really important to the overall game.
+ Nothing needed to be fixed with Justin Fields when he arrived, there was just a lot that he needed to handle, and he’s handled them. The more you win, the more expectations you create. He handles it well.
+ No change in the backup quarterback job right now. It’s still Chris Chugunov.
+ The conversation about which freshmen are going to be playing or redshirting is happening soon. The more experience they get this year, the better they’ll be this year. They don’t like to redshirt players because it can lower a player’s expectations for themselves. “We certainly would not tell somebody at this point in the year that, ‘Hey, you’re redshirting.” They want all players to be ready to contribute.
+ They work on late-game situations during the preseason and talk about awareness and assignments to avoid some of the mistakes made by many teams this past weekend. They will throw clips of those mistakes up on the screen and talk about what they would do in those situations.
+ As to Justin Fields’ inaccuracy this weekend, there’s a lot that goes into it. On two of those incompletions, there were defenders right in his face. He’s going to get older and he’ll have to start making those throws. This was just his third start. So much of this is just about getting experience. They also work on footwork in practice. They always have somebody blocking the view or throwing angle during practice for the quarterbacks.
+ The type of people they have on this team is another reason why he feels really good about this team. His son is around a lot of role models on this team and that’s great.
+ As you get into these weeks, you start to get a better feel for the opponent because there is more film out there, but you don’t truly know what a team is until midseason.
+ Now is not the time for reflection, but he is extremely grateful to have this opportunity. This is a special place with special people. The culture is strong. There is great energy in the program and in recruiting. The youth is being developed as well, but the team has to bring it each week.
+ He’s felt like this team can be great and be special. They are nowhere near that, but they have the talent and the leadership. Have to take it one week at a time to get there. It’s a cliché, but that’s how it works. Staying focused and avoiding distractions is always key.
+ There is no common denominator in defenses that has given his offenses trouble over the years. Everybody tries to stop the run first and then goes from there.
+ In forming his desired defense, that came from years of playing and watching players and defenses. You try to figure out the trends moving forward. He likes where they are right now and thinks it’s who they need to be. They are running and tackling hard. There are things to clean up, but the effort and toughness is there.
+ OSU played well, but they didn’t play great. They played hard, but when you see the film, there are so many things to clean up. “It’s actually frustrating to watch.” They aren’t worried about buying into their own hype because there is enough to work on after looking at the film.
+ FOX’s broadcast said Indiana planned to attack the right side of OSU’s offensive line, but Day said he didn’t notice that. There were a couple of blitzes there. The right side may be more untested, but so far they have answered those tests.
+ Day started out by talking about the importance of teachers in everyone’s lives and wanted to publicly thank them.
+ Miami (Ohio) has been in tough environments before, so they won’t be intimidated coming into this game.
Ohio Stat?? First sentence.