Ryan Day postgame interview | Ohio State-Rutgers
Monroe, uh Ryan just in a nutshell. It looked like Josh Proctor’s play changed the game cause the interception and obviously goes out. But yeah, I think so. Um There was a point there in the second half, we put the defense in, in a tough spot in 22 situations where Rutgers gets the ball in plus territory and defense hung in there. I thought that was really big again. Uh, but the, the pick six certainly opened things up Monroe Ryan, the fake punt in the first half, just what went into that decision. It was not a, a
fake punt. Um, and there was some miscommunication on that and, and, you know, that can’t happen. Uh Steven means Cleveland dot com with, uh he was available and, uh, you know, could have played, but we just felt like it wasn’t the right thing to do for him. You know, you talk about, you know, one of the tougher guys that we’ve been around, um, you know, at Ohio State my time here but, you know, he, he, he’s gonna say you can go and, you know, it was a decision made to hold him back and we’ll look
forward to getting him back next week. Yeah. Oh, well, yeah, I mean, it’s, uh, you know, it’s a team game but, yeah, I mean, the, the first half just, uh, just
he poured it up in there on that one. He never, he didn’t break stride and, you know, Rutgers is, is physical, you know, coming off of, of their by, they were fresh and ready to go and they played hard, they played as hard. And so, you know, we’ve had multiple weeks now, you know, Penn State and, and then Wisconsin and, um, you know, and now these guys, you know, these have been physical weeks but, you know, our guys are playing hard, they’re playing physical and, you know, uh, we’re playing good football down the stretch and
we’re wearing teams down in the second half, but certainly we’d like to play better in the first half as a team. Um, yeah, I’m not gonna get into it right now. Um, maybe we could talk about it with. No, III I think that, that, that is a part of it, I think we are doing that. But, um, but I also think, you know, when you just look at the overall consistency, um, you know, I think ear early on, uh, you know, they weren’t playing us in a too high shell, you know, they, they, they dropped
the safeties real deep and put clouds on both sides to, um, you know, take that part away and, and so we kind of recognized that at half time and realized, you know, we gotta be patient enough to run the ball all the way down the field. And, you know, I think, you know, they, they, um, you know, you have to ask Greg, but their philosophy is probably, well, they didn’t have patient enough to run the ball all the way down the field and take it and, you know, take the receivers out of the game, which
is sort of what happened. Um, but then, you know, we also, uh, you know, have to check the ball down and get to take something underneath underneath stuff that Kyle ended up doing a little bit in the second half. I thought we could have recognized that and done a better job early on, but we did in the second half. Anything. Is it just a little mistakes here and there? Beauty. Well, I think we go, we, we play against good defenses. It was good to get, um, you know, right down the field and get that touchdown
to g, early on that was good. Um, but then just, you know, a couple of tough, tough drives in there and all it takes is, you know, to be off a little bit and, and then you’re punting. So, um, you know, and, and, and the run game takes time, you know, you, you have to wear teams down with the run game. Um, but we’ll look at the film and keep swinging. Exactly. Right. Yeah, I just, you know, when you get him to the second level, he’s dangerous and once he gets out in the open field,
I mean, those are, those are good to great fast and I think the check down went for 60 some odd yards there. Um, and, and so like we said, he, he is a mismatch and, um, a very explosive player and then Hancock, no question, no question. I think it just goes to show, I mean, the defense have shown that before week after week that, you know, they’re gonna make you work the entire field and hang it in there. And so we’re gonna have to continue to do that, but, you know, we don’t want to be
putting them in those situations too many times. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I know they’re doing a great job, you know, give a lot of credit to, to Greg and, um, you know, and, and their, their staff, they’re doing a good job. They’re bringing in good players and um, you know, so, but, but, you know, when you’re playing on the road and you’re playing and, you know, at this point, you gotta find a way to win the game, that’s it, you know, win and, and then, you know, it was good to see us pull away a
little bit down the stretch, the podcast. When you walk up the field, how would you describe the way you felt about this and all the things you describe? Obviously the injuries a slow start, you don’t want to see some of that stuff and you look up at the by 19 on the road. Yeah. What, what did you think? Well, I, I feel like, um, you know, this team finds a way, they don’t panic, they, um, you know, keep swinging, they, they keep, um, fighting and, you know, we’ve been in, you know, halftime of these field,
these games and we’ve said we want to play better in the second half this year. That was a huge part of our off season. And you’re seeing that and again, I keep saying, you know, we could play better in the first half so that we don’t have to be in these situations, but the number one goal is to win games and, you know, we’re gonna continue to do that and we have to take care of the ball on offense. You know, I thought we had an opportunity in two minutes to kind of work the ball
down the field there and, and, um, I thought Kyle made a nice read. It was actually the will linebacker who made the play. We just got to get the ball up over that, that would have given us an opportunity to get some points. But, um, but again, I thought we did respond well in the second half. So we’ll watch the film and keep growing and keep, keep grinding on this thing. I mean, you’re in the meat of it. So, every time you, you go on the road back to back weeks, you know, physical weeks, you
know, you, you have to bring it and it isn’t just, you’re just gonna roll your helmets out there and think you’re gonna win a game. It doesn’t work that way. And I think our guys understand that and finishing, you gotta finish. Yeah, exactly. Because you just never know how these games are gonna go and you gotta be able to respond to whatever comes your way. So, um, you know, and that’s, that’s what championship teams do. They, they continue to week after week to have the stamina to find a way to win. And so, um, yeah,
here we go on to, um, I don’t have the answer to that. I don’t have the answer to that and I don’t think we know the answer to that. So, you know, we’ll get back and reassess it. Ever associated. Press. Yeah. Yeah, because our, our, our goal is to be the number one team at the end of the year and all it means is it’s, it’s a good start. Um, and we know we’re gonna take everybody’s best shot. Um, and we did again today, I thought, again, give, give Rutgers a lot of credit, but, uh,
but no, it doesn’t mean anything to us. Um, it’s great for the fans, but it just means we, we’re off to a good start and, and beat some good teams to begin with, but that means absolutely nothing. Are you starting to feel like this offense is coming together, maybe not as explosive as you have been in the past as frequently, but the pieces are starting to, to be there. Yeah, and, and, um, yeah, we, we didn’t have Cade today and, and that does, that doesn’t matter, but I gotta give G Scott and Pat Gurd some
credit for stepping in and, and, you know, Cade has shouldered a lot of, um, you know, snaps here the last couple of years and so, uh, for those guys to step up and, and, um, and play well, I think they played well, at least it seemed like it was good. Um, but, but yeah, uh, you know, you, you’d like to see, you know, again, early on some better third down conversions. I, I think we might have been over in the first half. I’m not sure exactly what it was, but then we ended up 6 to
12. So we must have been better in the second half. Is that what it was? Yeah. Yeah. And that was a big part of it because we weren’t finishing the drives, you know, and, and third down is such a huge deal. And so we did do a better job on third down and that made a difference. So, uh, situational football is critical. But yes, I think when, you know, for instance, in this game we recognized that they were in a two eye shell, they were gonna try to take away the outside. We had to run
the football and, and be, um, you know, patient enough to work the ball down the field on a couple of those drives and, and that’s what happened. But, but yeah, to answer your question, you know, you’re starting to see all that, you know, um, you know, get on the field together, love to get cade back so we can really be at full strength and done quickly and then we’re gonna go to the field, Spencer Holbrook, let him in. Rome. How much do you think it drops there? Uh, way to drive? Well, how, how big were
those drops? And? Mhm. No. You know, we’re not used to seeing that, you know, we have great receivers and have for the last year or last few years and, um, I, I thought, you know, throw it, better, catch it better is what we say, you know, we can always, uh, look at each other and try to figure out a way to get that, get that better. And, um, you know, but, yeah, there was, there was a couple there that if we, if we connect on those certainly keeps those drives moving and maybe it’s a different
situation. So then again, we’ll, we’ll keep working at it and get it better. Yeah, I mean, I had a good, I had a good picture of it. It was a, it was a cover two. Look, we’re high, low in the corner there and I felt like the corner was low. I think he was going to Marvin and, and the wheel was in the, uh, in the window there and we, we just got to put some more air on that. Um, you know, the ball came out flat and I think that’s, that’s where number one got,
got his hands on and made the interception. All right guys, we got, uh, let’s head to the field. We’ll do some players done there. Coach. Thank you very much.
