Losing to Michigan Cuts Deep for Ryan Day, Buckeyes

“When you work this game 365 days out of the year and you come up short, it’s a failure, and it hurts. It hurts a lot.”

Reality set in pretty quickly for the Ohio State Buckeyes on Saturday afternoon.

With a loss to Michigan for the first time since 2011, Ohio State's regular season is suddenly over. A team that rallied to nine consecutive victories after a Week 2 loss to Oregon on the heels of the nation's top-ranked offense appeared destined for a 5-peat in the Big Ten and a spot in the College Football Playoff for the third straight season.

But after Saturday's loss to Michigan, the Buckeyes won't even have a chance to defend that conference crown next weekend in Indianapolis and the likelihood of a CFP appearance is extraordinarily slim.

“I feel awful. I just got done talking to the team," Ohio State head coach Ryan Day said postgame. "When you work this game 365 days out of the year and come up short, it’s a failure. It hurts a lot.

“We did not run the ball very well on offense. We hurt ourselves with some penalties and then we didn’t stop the run. We didn’t get the job done today.

"When you live this year-round, it hurts. There is so much riding on it as we know. It will leave a mark for a while.”

It's hard to put in perspective immediately after a loss what you may be feeling in the moment. Ryan Day owned the loss and didn't point fingers at anyone or anything in particular. You win as a team and lose as a team, and an emotional loss like this is no exception.

Ohio State's Defense Flattened By Michigan

“There’s not much to say, because you don’t plan for these type of things,” Day said. “We’ll have to get on the bus, head back to Columbus and figure out what’s next. You don’t really have time to process all of that. Especially for the younger guys who have had to play a lot this year, there’s a lot to be learned from this. We’re not there right now, this thing is still fresh and it hurts. So we’ll get back on the bus, head to Columbus and figure out what’s next.”

The loss for Day was just his fourth as the head coach at Ohio State, including two CFP losses to Clemson and Alabama, and the loss to Oregon back in September of this season. It's also his first loss in Big Ten play, bringing his record to 23-1.

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