Buckeyes earn 'second lease on life,' believe CFP bid is coming Sunday
COLUMBUS — Ohio State head coach Ryan Day hopped on ESPN’s “College GameDay” Saturday morning to talk about the Buckeyes’ renewed hope for a College Football Playoff berth after No. 4 USC’s 47-24 loss to No. 11 Utah in the Pac-12 Championship.
Day said that he was on his way back from a recruiting visit in Cincinnati during the first half. That’s when the high-powered Trojans shot out to a 17-3 lead.
But Day explained that he was back home to watch the second half. He praised Kyle Whittingham for the longtime Utah head coach’s effort.
“Our guys were really looking for an opportunity to finish this thing out the right way,” Day said. “I think that opportunity is now in front of us.”
Day characterized the last week as a “roller coaster.” The Buckeyes dropped from No. 2 to No. 5 in the CFP rankings Tuesday after suffering an embarrassing 45-23 loss to Michigan last weekend, Ohio State’s second straight to the Wolverines and first in the series at home since 2000.
Questions were raised about Day’s standards, his inability to beat “The Team Up North” and where the Buckeyes — who retooled their defensive staff last offseason to prevent another Michigan beatdown — were supposed to go from here.
But with USC’s loss Friday night, the narrative changed.
“When you go through a few days where you think that maybe your whole season’s gone, and all of a sudden you start to build hope and then you start to see the opportunity where everything’s right out in front of you. It’s almost like a second lease on life,” Day said.
Day added: “There’s been a swing in the whole program here in the last 24 hours. There’s a lot of excitement. The guys were sending text messages last night and really, really excited.”
Of course, Ohio State hasn’t booked its ticket just yet. But with two losses to Utah, USC is all but guaranteed to drop out of the top four, leaving the door open for the Buckeyes to back their way into the field. No. 6 Alabama has two losses like USC, and the Crimson Tide aren’t playing in Championship Weekend.
So all signs point to No. 5 Ohio State grabbing a spot in the CFP for the fifth time in program history, and the third time in Day’s tenure.
All Day and the Buckeyes want is a shot.
“I shared with the team that last year Georgia lost in the SEC Championship to Alabama, I think it was 41-24, and then came back and won the whole thing,” Day said. “We spent our time focusing on the things that we didn’t do well [against Michigan]. But, by the end of the week, we were looking forward.”
Day continued: “Moving forward, we’re gonna play loose. We’re gonna be aggressive. And we’re gonna go at people. There can’t be anyone in our program that presses at all or feels pressure. We’re just gonna roll, and I think we can be a dangerous team here in the Playoff.”
