michael coen
College football and college basketball writer
COLUMBUS, Ohio — It’s a game for Ohio State’s embattled head coach Ryan Day, who stood in nearly the same place three weeks ago on Nov. 30 with everything about his team and his tenure in sight. How different the scene must have felt afterwards. They lost four straight to Michigan and collapsed. Her eyes turned red from the pepper spray fired by local police, and she spent the rest of the day screaming and seeking medical attention. Belligerent fans, their patience eroded by Day’s confusing game plan, hurled profane insults at him. The injured seniors, whose careers were forever scarred by their failure to beat Team Up North, got into a scuffle over the midfield logo as the Wolverines tried to plant the flag. Confusion reigned as Day took root at the 24-yard line, his disbelief and disillusionment coalescing into temporary paralysis.
A lot had changed when Day returned to the field late Saturday night in the aftermath of the College Football Playoff game against Tennessee. Fans enthusiastically packed into Ohio Stadium and left long before the end of the fourth quarter. Perhaps emboldened by the sickening prospect of a $20 million roster disbanding with only cash left behind, Day and the coaching staff wrote and built their best performance of the season. They dismantled the Volantes, 42-17, and at the same time got Ohio State overtime. The state season bounced around, putting the program back in the national championship conversation. Saturday night’s win over a respected SEC opponent was so comprehensive that the Buckeyes opened as the betting favorite to take on No. 1 Oregon in the quarterfinals. This is a reenactment of the instant classic Rose Bowl that both teams performed at Autzen Stadium in mid-October. That night, the Ducks won by one point.
To earn that rematch and a chance to advance to the national semifinals, there are so many things Ohio State will have to fix heading into the postseason, both structurally and mentally, that the coaching staff will have to explore. There were also very many. The Buckeyes needed to strengthen their interior offensive line as injuries forced personnel changes. They needed to rediscover their aggressiveness in the passing game as the targets for wide receivers Jeremiah Smith and Emeka Egbuka waned along with the amount of downfield shooting. They needed to revitalize their pass rush. Veteran edge rushers Jack Sawyer and JT Tuimoloau underachieved compared to their sky-high recruitment pedigrees. And Day himself had to rekindle the excitement at Ohio Stadium, where scores of fans cheered the possibility of his being fired after another loss against Michigan.
“It’s been a long preparation for us,” Day said in the postgame press conference. “To say it’s not a burden on you, it is a burden. We take a lot of pride in who we are. They take a lot of pride.
“I think it says a lot about who our players are that we were able to respond in such a big way.”
Long before anyone knew what version of Ohio State would be on Saturday night or how many Ohio State fans would fill the stadium, Day camped out near the goal line during early warmups. I took it. He was on the sidelines at point-blank range for lofted passes that quarterback Will Howard threw to each member of the Buckeyes’ incredibly talented receiving corps. Day watched rep after rep, parabola after parabola, as Howard dropped a pass into the metaphorical bucket. The irony of the situation was rich for the show’s closeted followers, especially those who wanted Day removed from her high-paying post. Day was there, a purveyor of a game plan that detested the confusing aerial battles that hampered the team in a game against Michigan late last month. , looking at the very style of offense that fans have been dying to see him and offensive coordinator Chip Kelly embrace all season.
Perhaps the reason Day was so obsessed with Howard’s long passes was because he knew what was going to be a very aggressive game plan. For a 37-yard touchdown pass to Smith on the team’s first possession and a 40-yard connection to Egbuka on the team’s second possession. For the wheel route that gave tailback Treveyon Henderson 21 yards and Howard’s second touchdown pass of 22 yards to Smith, now give star corner Jermod McCoy any form of safety assistance. Tennessee defensive coordinator Tim Banks’ arrogance in refusing to do so was punished. By the time Howard finished completing 24 of 29 passes for 311 yards for the Volunteers, his success made possible by a much more determined offensive line, the Buckeyes’ lead had grown to 32 points early in the fourth quarter. It swelled to.
“To win it all, you have to win the first game,” Kelly said. “That’s really the focus of the whole team. I thought Ryan did a great job of keeping everyone focused. That really wasn’t the case.” [any] Let’s talk about what we’ll be doing on January 20th [when the national championship game will be played] Because if we didn’t cherish December 21st, then January 20th would have no meaning. I think the players on the team were focused on this game. ”
But so did Tennessee’s fan base. Since Knoxville and Ohio Stadium are only 360 miles apart, many Volunteer fans jumped at the opportunity to travel to Interstate 75 in what many described as a “bucket list trip of a lifetime.” Caravanning north along the highway, they passed through Kentucky and invaded the Buckeye State. Those who don’t want to drive are choosing to fly, and the frigid Midwestern climate is filled with men in plaid overalls in the lobby of a hotel adjacent to John Glenn Columbus International Airport. It was filled with women debating how many layers they should wear to keep out the cold at night. At about 3:15 p.m., one of the women joked, “Guys, you’re going to be out for the next eight hours.”
Additionally, thousands of Tennessee fans braved the weather for quite some time, invading side streets and drinking fountains adjacent to Ohio State’s campus long before kickoff on a 25-degree night. A pregame interview with Southern Barbarians fans on ESPN Radio revealed that most of the fans paid between $200 and $300 for tickets, but that amount was not included for the conference game against Vanderbilt. It was compared to the away price. In the days after this year’s playoff spots were announced, countless fans were able to purchase tickets through leaked advance sales. Of the 102,819 fans in attendance Saturday night, between 25% and 35% were wearing orange.
“I think they thought that [that] They were going to take over this place,” Howard said.
Theoretically, Tennessee had enough fans to do so, which would have meant just how dangerous the early stages of Saturday’s game actually were, and if the Buckeyes had fallen behind early on, there would have been plenty of fans inside Ohio Stadium. It highlights how the atmosphere could have soured and boiled over into outright accusations. Instead, the emerging Scarlet and Gray faithful were treated to a blowout victory in which Ohio State led by 21 points at the end of the first quarter and outgained the Volunteers by 217 total yards. He forced running back Niko Iamareaba into four sacks. , his nine pass breakups and 45.2% completion rate are his lowest numbers this season.
With 13 minutes left in the fourth quarter, Tennessee fans dripping out of the outlet, any flickering hopes of a comeback were dashed by Iamareaba’s incomplete burn on fourth down. Ohio State’s victory was certain, so the assistant coach who had been watching these games in the booth snuck off for a bathroom break while the snaps were still going on and joined a few reporters in the restroom. However, chatter was still coming out of the headset.
“I told them in the locker room that in life, as a person, as a man, as a father, your life is determined by how you handle adversity. So to see how,” Day said. spoke. They answered that in this game. [after losing to Michigan]from the jump, you could tell they looked in the eyes that they were going to go win this game. I thought they played like that. ”
The look in Day’s eyes as the band played “Carmen Ohio” in celebration of the monumental victory and extension of Ohio State’s season was equally telling. On November 30th, he hugged his wife and children just meters away from where the madness was unfolding around him. And on this night, he earned the right to laugh.
Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball with an emphasis on the Big Ten for FOX Sports. please follow him @Michael_Cohen13.
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