Via Laken Litman
FOX Sports College Football Writer
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Day Ryan Walked In Ohio StateInterview room after the Saturday game smiling. In fact, he was very playful.
Yes, the second-ranked Buckeyes just beat the fifth Notre Dame 21-10 at a roaring Horseshoe to open the season. But this is not 45 points, the offensive burst of a performance we all have come to expect. This is downright cruel.
Ohio State’s offense had to run the ball and the defense had to crush it and make big plays, the opposite of the Day special win. His team passes the ball. A major storyline for months this season has been how lethal Ohio State’s passing game will be with the connection between CJ Stroudlast year’s Heisman Trophy finalist, and Jaxon Smith-Njigbaprobably the country’s best wide receiver.
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But that’s not how this game wins. And the Ohio State coaching staff couldn’t be more excited about it.
“A lot of people have questioned our toughness this season and for us to win the way we did, I couldn’t be more proud,” Day said.
“Who said it has to be a follow-up meeting?” Ohio State offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson shouted in the tunnel after the game. “We can go down dirty!”
No. 2 Ohio State longer than No. 5 Notre Dame
RJ Young breaks Ohio State’s 21-10 win over Notre Dame. CJ Stroud was huge for the Buckeyes, completing 24 of 34 223-yard passes.
Ohio State’s original game plan was soon derailed when Smith-Njigba was shaken in the first quarter. He was dropped from the limit after a catch, causing him to miss the next few series. He tried to come back in Q2, but leaned back on his left side. He also tried running on the sidelines under the supervision of a sports coach, but in and out of the injury tent.
Ohio State needs to win without him.
“Yes, it was a struggle very early on, who expect Smith-Njigba to return sometime this week,” Day said. “When we lost Jaxon we were a bit off-beat, couldn’t convert from third, a lot of deviations from plan with a few penalties we had to clean up.
“But you know, the first games, we had a bit of trouble. And again, losing Jaxon made us lose interest a little bit, and we had to respond.”
Ohio State has plenty of receivers at Stroud’s disposal, like Emeka Egbukawho had nine catches in 90 yards, and Marvin Harrison Jr., who had five catches in 56 yards. Stroud also has Xavier Johnson, a former scholarship player walking back, whose 24-yard touchdown with 17 seconds left in the third inning put the Buckeyes up 14-10. But Smith-Njigba won the Biletnikoff award, so the vibe is off when he’s not competing.
Plan B committed to implementation, which Ohio State implemented in the fourth quarter. TreVeyon Henderson and Miyan Williams combined with 175 yards and a touch of the ball. And in a 14-time, 95-yard touchdown to win, Ohio State hit the ball 10 times, seven times by Williams, who had won 49 of his 84 yards at the time. He also has a catch.
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It’s wonder how the game could have gone if Ohio State had committed to running sooner. If Day hadn’t waited until the fourth quarter, the Buckeyes might have taken Notre Dame sooner.
“We have to be able to win that way,” Day said. “We have to find a way to win like that. Because there are bound to be Big Ten games like that, and Notre Dame is built like some of the Big Ten teams we play. And for those the team wanted to get on the ball and finish the clock and not make fouls on the pitch, we had to run the ball in those moments. And we did. We had to do it. And that’s what we did. spent a lot of time in the season. , we had to be able to win the ugly on attack and stop the runaway on defense.
“It’s all the same. When you have that flexibility, it works. So this is a great start for us. We have a lot to improve, a lot to do. construction, but I’m proud of our team.”
Stroud dribbled 24 out of 34 for 223 yards and two touchdowns and made some great plays in the long run. Many of those were scrambles on the run that looked like he was about to go out of bounds, but instead he completed a 12-yard pass for Williams here and a nine-yard pass. for Harrison Jr. there.
“I think you can see who CJ wants to be,” Day said. “He might want to go out there and have all these pitches and everything like that. It doesn’t matter to him. The important thing is to win, and he’s the winner.”
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Notre Dame is a formidable opponent that might surprise everyone outside of South Bend. It kept Ohio State to 99 yards of passing in the first half and a touchdown before the final three laps. For a good chunk of the game, the Fighting Irish are more dominant in the trenches, which is an area where Ohio State has been trying to get better.
In the end, Ohio State’s defense, a group retooled under new defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, held out the Irish one touch and 253 yards in total. They stopped the run, holding Notre Dame to 76 yards out of 2.5 yards each.
Day said: “The story of the night is the excuse. “It came back after what was said about them during the season, questioning their toughness.”
“We were called soft all last year and had to eat it,” added safety Lathan Ransom.
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There’s a lot of hype surrounding Ohio State this holiday season. Day’s team was the favorite to win the national championship, and that set the tone at the opener at home. Famous Buckeyes fans get noticed LeBron James walking on the sidelines before starting, like that Jayson TatumAndre Iguodala, Justin Fields, Ezekiel Elliott, Joe Burrow, plus the entire 2002 Ohio State national championship team, honored throughout the game. It took a while for the Buckeyes to settle and click, and while they enjoyed the environment, the pressure didn’t help.
“I mean, when I think about the game, we’re playing against the number five in the country,” Stroud said. “Honestly, it was weird being out there again. It was like seeing the fans, facing all the noise outside and trying to get in. At the end of the day, we won the battle. win.”
The expectation at Ohio State was to win the national championship. This is a group that truly believes last year’s 11-2 season, in which they won the Rose Bowl, was a failure. The Buckeyes’ goal is to beat Michigan, win the Big Ten, and win the national title. All of that is still very much a possibility, but there is still much work to be done. This team isn’t on the same level as Alabama or Georgia, but there’s still time to get there.
“If we can keep winning games like that, that’s how we’re going to win games,” Day said. “And when you can win in so many different ways, that says a lot about your team and I think this game is going to be highly profitable.”
Laken Litman covers college football, college basketball, and soccer for FOX Sports. She has previously written for Sports Illustrated, USA Today and The Indianapolis Star. She is the author of “Strong Like a Woman,” which was published in the spring of 2022 to mark Title IX’s 50th anniversary. Follow her on Twitter @LakenLitman.
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