Ohio State head coach Ryan Day took questions from the media this week ahead of his game at Indiana.
Below is a transcript of the questions and answers that pertain to the Hoosiers.
No. 5/4 Indiana (6-0) and No. 4/5 Ohio State (5-1) kick at Noon ET Saturday in Bloomington (FOX).
On lessons learned from the Big Ten Championship game vs. Indiana:
Any coach would tell you going into a game that nothing that has happened before matters at all. But when you look back, going 4-for-13 on third down and scoring only 10 points in four red-zone trips is not good. You are not going to win many games when you do that. It is a significant and good reminder of how important those situations are. Indiana does as good a job as anybody in the country of winning situations—the turnover battle, explosive plays, third down, and the red zone. We have to be good this week. We have to win in those areas, and that is something that we emphasize every week.
On how much they’ll review that Big Ten title game in preparation for Saturday:
It is definitely two new teams, but coaches will look at everything. We look at what they have done this year, what they did last year, and all the different games to try to figure out what is best to put our guys in a situation to be successful. I don’t think anything that happened last year has anything to do with what is going on this year. This is a new team, and all that matters is how we play on Saturday.
On whether OSU is following IU’s model of bringing in older, experienced players:
We look at everything, but you have to give Indiana and their coaching staff a lot of credit for what they have been able to do. They have a very veteran team. These guys have played a lot of football. When you look at it, a lot of guys across all three phases have played over a thousand college snaps. Their staff has done a very good job of bringing in guys who are mature and have played a lot of football before. That started off, obviously, by bringing in some guys from James Madison. He has continued to identify not just guys who have played a lot of football, but guys who fit his culture and are good football players, which is what you are seeing this season.
On Ohio State’s offensive line reshuffling ahead of the game:
It is going to be a huge challenge. They do an excellent job up front on defense. Their defensive line is one of the biggest challenges we will have all season. We have to have a great week of preparation. Like you said, it looks like we will get Phil back this week, so he will have a full day today. We will work through what that looks like throughout the week. This is not something that you don’t plan for; we have a plan in place. That is why we recruit depth, that is why we develop depth, and that is why we have to play depth. That is what we are going to have to do in this game and then be prepared for whatever comes with it. The good news is some of these guys have played against Indiana before, so they know how good these guys are and what comes with it. They are going to have all of our attention for sure.
On OSU QB Julian Sayin’s progress after struggling against Indiana’s pressure a year ago:
A lot comes with it. It is the timing of the routes, the protection, and the presence and feel in the pocket. I think it is something that all quarterbacks have a process of developing, and you have seen a lot of progress made there. This will be another tough environment. This is going to be loud, so we are going to need to handle the silent cadence. We know what this means for their program and for our program.
The good news is we have already been in a couple of these environments. This is where quarterbacks have to be tough. Everyone has to be tough, but when you are on the road in these types of environments, handling the noise and getting a win like this on the road is going to take everybody. Certainly, the quarterback being able to handle everything that comes with that—third down, red zone, pressure—all of those things will be important. I am excited to see Julian play on Saturday. This is obviously a huge one for all of us, but it is not just the quarterback; it is everybody.
We have to find a balance. Another thing that Indiana does a good job of is forcing you to win your one-on-one battles for a lot of different reasons. I won’t get into all the reasons why, but they do a very good job of that, and that is the challenge for our guys.
On Josh Hoover not turning the ball over after throwing a lot of interceptions at TCU:
Yeah, it is 17 touchdowns and zero interceptions. He is playing really efficient. They are doing a good job of putting him in a system that takes care of the ball, and that is one of the reasons why they have been so successful and won so many games. They take care of the football, so you have to give them a lot of credit for their scheme.
On Indiana’s ability to rally in the fourth quarter:
It’s not that it’s stressful. It’s just that you have to stay focused for 60 minutes. The challenge for all of us is to make sure that if you take a play off, these guys will hurt you. We can’t do that. From the jump, we have to be locked in with great concentration, everybody doing their job at a high level. Then we must sustain that throughout the entire game because if you don’t, these guys can hurt you, and they have.
On the challenge presented by Nick Marsh and Charlie Becker:
These guys in particular are very clean route runners and play really strong on contact. They have really good body control and run-after-catch ability. They are very confident playing against man-to-man coverage. They do an excellent job with their slants, fades, and back-shoulder fades, and you can tell that is clearly taught at a very high level there. Certainly, Becker has made some big-time plays in big-time moments, and Marsh is playing as good as anybody right now. This is a huge challenge for our secondary.
Again, we talk about winning our one-on-ones. We have to win our one-on-ones, whether that is up front or in the back end, and whether you are in man or zone—it doesn’t matter. You combine those two guys with the backs that they have, and they have a really good group of guys who are very dangerous on offense.
On some of Ohio State’s players wanting revenge for last year:
Everybody has their own thoughts and emotions. As we talked about on Sunday and will talk again today in the team meeting, nothing that happened in the past has anything to do with what’s going on this weekend. We can learn from the past, and some of the guys who played in that game can learn about all the reasons why we came up short. That’s fine and that’s good, but the focus has to be on right now, and that’s it. That’s what we’re going to focus on, and that will be the message to the team.
More on the trend of prioritizing experience in the portal vs. developing your own players.
Most coaches would tell you they want to bring someone in, develop them, and keep them within their program. When you bring someone in for a single year, you may know a lot about them, but you don’t know everything. We knew a lot about Will, but we didn’t know everything about him. That worked out great because he was a veteran guy with a lot of experience who had an unbelievable season. I look at how other programs have done it, certainly looking at what Indiana has done and some of the other programs across the country. But most people would say they would rather develop someone, know what they have, and bring them along for leadership and retainment purposes.
For the quarterback position, nothing replaces experience and repetitions. When you see a lot of those guys who end up in New York City for the Heisman, a lot of them are older guys who have been starting for five or six years now. You think about Michael Penix starting at Indiana and then going to Washington, Jayden Daniels, or Bo Nix. You go through the list of guys who started somewhere, had some success, had some failures, learned from it, and then went to a new place. By the time you get to be 21, 22, or 23 years old, you are much more experienced and you have this Rolodex of plays you are remembering as opposed to learning. Watching Lincoln playing well has been great, and I am proud of him and what he is doing down there after spending multiple years together. When you have a couple of years under your belt and have grown through a program, you are a little bit more mature and older, which certainly helps. We will always evaluate it the best we can, but we always want to make sure we are recruiting young guys, developing them, and retaining them.
On the need to play a clean game in a tough environment:
You just mentioned it; that is exactly where we are at right now. That is the challenge right in front of us. Here we are against a team that hasn’t lost a game in a long time and is the defending national champion. We are here right now, and that is why everybody is going to do whatever it takes this week to go get this win. You are exactly right that we have to play clean. Everyone has to do their job, coaches and players included. The number one thing is to win this game. We are here now, so we have to go.
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