Ryan Day on another loss to Michigan: 'This is not easy to accept'

Trent Knoop | 1 Hour Ago

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It was supposed to be Ryan Day's time to shine after losing three in a row to Michigan. Ohio State entered The Game as a three-touchdown favorite, but the Buckeyes ended up scoring just one touchdown on the day. Michigan shocked the nation by entering The 'Shoe and taking down the Buckeyes 13-10 to make it four straight wins over Ohio State.

Day is now 1-4 against Michigan and while many thought he had a Jim Harbaugh problem, Day was outcoached by first-year Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore. The Wolverines have a brand new staff for the most part and Michigan outcoached the entire Buckeyes' staff -- Jim Knowles called a great game for the Ohio State defense.

Day is left with more questions than answers. Here's what he had to say about Michigan after the loss.

On offense struggling, not getting run game going

Yeah, well, I think we struggled to run the ball in this game. We know we’ve talked about this many times. We have to run the ball, especially in this game. You know, it was a little windy out and, you know, in order to win the game, you got to be able to run it. We weren’t able to do that. Tried a couple different schemes, couldn’t quite get into a rhythm on that and that, ultimately, along with the turnovers and the missed field goals, which was the difference in the game

Is there a mental hurdle when it comes to beating Michigan?

I don’t know, but then I can just kinda go off of this game and what’s going on in this game right now. I think each game is a little bit different and unique to itself, like you said, but the results, the results, and — as hard as that is to say, we came up short here again today. And, not easy to swallow at all

Is Ohio State not doing enough to prepare for Michigan?

I’m just fresh off the game right now, and obviously extremely disappointed, and angry that we didn’t execute well enough. So, I’m not there right now, just fresh off the game. But, as you know this is not easy to accept, and, obviously have to take the ownership. I’m the one ultimately that makes the final decisions on things. And, felt like we were in a really good place coming into this game. I felt like we were prepared to play well in this game. And, I think you could see maybe some of the stuff that happened in the offensive line and shuffling things around ended up really coming to a head today. Some of those guys have to look at the film and figure it out, but we just couldn’t seem to get through to the second level on some runs. And, led to some frustration. And then, again, I thought guys were into it even all the way to the end.

It’s a great play by Jack [Sawyer] on the goal line. Just unbelievable effort right there to give the offense a chance. But, go three and out, and it was fourth-and-1 in our red zone. I just felt like at that point, we had to punt it, because if you don’t get it there, the game’s probably, really in the balance. So, yeah, I don’t know much more to say about it.

On fans booing and where his program is at after another loss to Michigan

I mean, everybody wants to win this game in a worst way, and nobody wants to win it more than we do, and it’s our No. 1 goal every year. And so when you don’t do that, there’s disappointment and frustration. And so, I don’t blame anybody for being upset. I’m upset more than anybody. And those players are too, and the coaches and everybody that goes at it. So I mean, we know we’re getting ourselves into here.

Did Ohio State think about spreading Michigan out and throwing more

Yeah. Well, you know, I guess we ended up throwing at the end of the game 33 times out of — I don’t know how many plays we had, 59? So there were more passes than runs. But you can’t just abandon the run. You have to be able to control the ball. Because, as we know, and you throw the ball, and it was, it was windy today, and we didn’t have a ton of time back there in terms of protection, so we tried to be smart about that without, again, we had a good plan in the pass game going in, but ultimately it wasn’t good enough to execute it. But yeah, I mean, those are all things you talk about, and make sure you’re doing the best you can.

Thoughts on postgame fight between the two rivals

Yeah, I don’t know all the details of it, but I know that these guys are looking to put a flag on our field, and our guys weren’t going to let that happen. So I’ll find out exactly what happened. But this is our field, and certainly, we’re embarrassed with the fact that we lost the game. But there’s some prideful guys in this team that weren’t just gonna let that happen.

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