Ryan Day offers explanation for Michigan loss

Ryan Day is trying to find the words to explain Ohio State being drubbed by Michigan on Saturday.

The Buckeyes leader had a whole year to think about last season’s loss, and spoke about the importance of rebounding against the Wolverines in 2022. However, Jim Harbaugh and company brought the pain and shocked Ohio State, and now it looks like Day is going to relive the same year over the next 365 days once again.

Afterwards, the Ohio State offensive guru offered his words regarding the loss.

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“I think when you look at the first half, physically, we were playing really well up front. Especially on defense. I’m not sure how many yards they had in the first half running the ball, they had those two long plays,” explained Day. “Then in the second half it was more of the same, too many big plays. You know, that’s really — when you look at the game, I don’t have the stats in front of me but it was just too many, way too many big plays. On offense, you know we had too many penalties. Off schedule, and we just didn’t do a good job converting on third down.

“Combine all these things together, and it gets out of hand at the end. Because you know, we’re probably throwing the ball too much.”

No matter how you slice it, Ohio State simply wasn’t good enough against Michigan on Saturday. Ryan Day was out-coached by Jim Harbaugh, CJ Stroud was out-played by JJ McCarthy, and a nightmare fourth quarter saw their College Football Playoff chances likely slip away.

Once again, the Michigan game provided a heartbreaking conclusion to Ohio State’s season, and Ryan Day will be thinking about it for a long time.

Ryan Day believes Ohio State would be ‘dangerous’ in College Football Playoff

Continuing, Day argued in his postgame press conference that the game was closer than many think most of the way, saying the Buckeyes could still be a “dangerous” team if let in the CFP.

“I thought we were in it,” the coach said. “We were fighting there at the end and it obviously got out of control down the stretch. It wasn’t like we were outmatched in terms of just overall play, I think. As we get to those decisions, I think you’ve got to look at the body of work we’ve done.

“We’ve got a lot of good pieces on this team and we came up short today. But I think if we were able to get a shot in the top four, we’d be a dangerous team.”

After throwing a pair of touchdown passes in the first half, Buckeyes quarterback CJ Stroud was held to just 154 yards and threw two crucial interceptions down the stretch. After Ohio State kicked a field goal to make it 31-23 with 7:23 remaining, Michigan immediately answer with a score of its own and Stroud threw his first interception on the next drive after the Buckeyes got in the red zone.

Michigan scored again on the drive after that pick, the proverbial nail in the coffin to go up three touchdowns with just 3:19 remaining.

As of right now, three teams seem like locks to make the College Football Playoff in Georgia, Michigan and TCU. However, with conference championship games taking place next week, that could change. 

Even if all of those teams win their respective conference titles, there could still be room for Ohio State to make it in the College Football Playoff depending on how LSU and USCfinish out the season. However, a two-loss Alabama team is looming and could be a problem for the Buckeyes.

On3’s Chandler Vessels contributed to this article.