Ohio State ended Tennessee football’s season on Saturday night as the Buckeyes torched the Vols 42-17 in the opening round of the CFP.
The Buckeyes jumped out to a 21-0 lead in the first quarter and largely coasted from there to advance to the Rose Bowl.
Following the game, Day discussed the offensive game plan, Ohio State’s dominant defensive effort and much more. Here’s everything Day said.
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On Ohio State playing so well
“I’m proud of our seniors for a lot of reasons. One, for the fact that they were able to finish their last game at Ohio Stadium with a win like that. I’m also proud of the way that they responded.
I told them in the locker room that in life you’re going to be — you’re defined by the way you handle adversity in life, as a person, as a man, as a dad. So to see the way that they responded in this game, you can tell from the jump that they had a look in their eye that they were going to go win this game. I thought they played that way. A lot of football ahead of us. Great win. We’ll enjoy this for 24 hours. Then it’s on to Oregon.”
On what they did differently compared to the Michigan game
“I think it was a combination of things. I think it’s a little bit of everything. I think when you go back and look at the season — we talked about it going into the game — we were a different team. When we lost Seth, we played that Indiana game. We got the punt return, looking back on it. We got that turnover down in the red zone. We really didn’t play great on offense in the Indiana game, truth be told.
Then we went into the last game and still didn’t quite know what the ramifications were from everything that was going on based on who we had up front. And there was a lot of things that played into that game. But certainly one of them was we called this game more aggressively. There’s no question about that.
But also I think we did some things in this game that maximized what we have in terms of our strengths and minimized our deficiencies — not that everything was perfect in this game; it wasn’t. But I do think that — and I also thought Will was excellent in this game. Played really well. Did a really good job of placing the ball in some big-time throws. When he needed to make plays with his legs, he did.
And certainly Jeremiah was dynamite again. But Will was a leader.
But we also had balance in this game. It wasn’t like we were throwing it all over the place. We did have balance. We had some good runs, and those hit for us, which makes a big difference when you have that run/pass balance that we’re looking for. This has got to build momentum going into this next game.”
On dominating the first half but only being up 11
“Yeah, that’s why we knew coming out in the second half we had to win the next four to five minutes, and we did. That really helped, because you’re right; you can feel that a little bit.
I say it to them all the time coming into halftime you’re going to be up/down or it’s going to be tied. So, now we have to go win the next four, five minutes of the game. They deferred, so they got the ball. We had to get that stop. We did. And we went down and scored, and that made a huge difference.
But I tell the guys all the time that in games like this, you’ve got to have poise because there’s ups and downs, and you can’t get caught up in that. But, yeah, there was a point there where we have a chance to go up 28-0, and we throw the interception. Great play, and I liked the call.
I liked how aggressive we were because that’s part of it. When you’re going to call the game aggressively and something like this happens, you have to be able to live with it. But, yeah, we had a chance to score there and go 28-nothing, and the game is pretty much in hand at that point. But they fought their way back in. They’re a good team. This is a very good SEC team that came up here. So we knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”
On the importance of scoring on the opening drive
“And just the execution. We’ve talked about that the last few weeks in some of the press conferences we’ve been in. I know you’ve heard us harp on execution, execution, execution, because there’s a lot of things coming out of that last game that we just look back on and we just didn’t execute very well.
And certainly there are things that we needed to do better in terms of scheme. But we also didn’t execute. I thought we for the most part fielded the kicks better in this game. I thought we blocked better in this game. I thought we ran through contact better in this game. And certainly we threw and caught better in this game. And that made a huge difference in it.
You’re right, there was a confidence coming out of that first quarter because we were playing with a lot of energy.
But even coming out of warmups you could feel it. These guys wanted to play in this game and there was a confidence that got built through practice. And I thought we had a good game plan going in. I think the guys believed in it. And that went a long way to get that first drive.”
On what allowed for the team to bounce back after the Michigan loss
“The first week was an identification of the issues. You don’t just move on from the game. You have to identify what the issues are and have real conversations with the players, allow them to speak because they’re vested in this. And then coaches have their two cents.
You give it about a week and then you put a plan together on how we’re going to move forward, how we’re going to get these things fixed. And you find out who your opponent is. We found out it’s Tennessee. That’s where the two weeks of work went. About Wednesday of this week you could tell these guys just wanted to get on the field. It had been a long leadup for us, weeks. To say it doesn’t weigh on you, it does. We have a lot of pride in who we are. These guys have a lot of pride.
These guys, they love each other and they’re a great representation of Ohio State. And I’m glad that they were able to — for the last game, for those seniors — to finish with a win, but they are not satisfied at all. I mean, they quickly are going to get their focus on Oregon, which is going to be a rematch for us, which is exciting, and going into a great opportunity to go play in the Rose Bowl again. So I think it says a lot about who our guys are that we’re able to respond like that in a big way.”
On the importance of winning big moving forward
“That’s it. And even there were a couple of points in the game, there’s a couple of calls and different things where in the past, when you have one of these games and it comes down to the last play, you can look to those as game-altering plays.
But when you leave no doubt, nobody will talk about those plays because we did. And there was a few opportunities in this game to do that very thing — fourth down stop. There was, again, those drives right there in the third quarter that I felt like allowed us an opportunity to pull away when the defense was getting stops.”
On the performance of Luke Montgomery
“When you don’t notice the guards, they’re doing pretty well. I noticed Luke’s energy, toughness and edge. I’ve got to watch the film and see how he did, but we blocked them much better in this game. And they have a good front.
I thought we got some of the gap schemes going. Some good double teams. It wasn’t all perfect by any means, and we’ll have to continue to diversify going into next game. But I thought we at least focused on the things that these guys could do well and now we have to build on it.
And they play with confidence and energy. You could see after we scored a couple of touchdowns, they were jacked up, and coming off the field with good energy.
And the leaders of that group is certainly Donovan Jackson and Josh Fryar. And good to see Carson play well, looked like it anyways from my point of view, watching the game on tablet that he played well. That allows us to have balance, and as you know that’s a huge part of it.”
On the defense’s performance
“They’re playing with confidence. And coming off the last game, I think they felt like, you know, we have to go win the game, but when the offense is playing to their potential, like they were today, now it’s complementary and you can end up with a game like we did tonight.
So you just never know. It could be like the Oregon game. It could be like the last game of the season. You just never know how those games are going to shake out. And we have to do whatever we can to win. We’ve talked about that before. Just win the game. And so we’ve got to win three more.”
On Ryan Day’s accuracy down the field
“I thought his footwork was good. We worked hard on some of those throws, and he hit a few of those right on the money. The fade ball and go ball were really well done. The levels ball, too, and Carnell was really a well thrown ball. Probably missing a few others. But he was accurate today.
A big thing for Will is his footwork. When his footwork’s on point, and when he’s seeing things well, he’s as good as anybody in the country.”
On three Big 10 teams being in the quarterfinals
“Well, I think the Big Ten has great football. I think that we play nine conference games. So we beat each other up sometimes. But when you have an opportunity like this against a very good SEC team, we know how important that is for the conference.
And great to see some of the other teams in the league representing well because it is a great conference and a very difficult conference.”
