Ryan Day: "How Can We Do Things Better?"

The Buckeyes are entering the easiest portion of the schedule, but they aren't taking their foot off the gas.

The Buckeyes are coming off a nice win over Penn State after they steamrolled their way past Nebraska in the opener. By all accounts, it's a great start to the season and the schedule is about to get significantly less-stressful the next two weeks.

But don't expect the Buckeyes to get complacent.

Perhaps it's because the season was taken away from them at first, and they fought so hard to get it back. Perhaps it's fuel from the way last season ended in a crushing loss to Clemson in the College Football Playoff. There are plenty of reasons. But Ryan Day's team is early on their journey together and he made it clear on Tuesday with the media that they have an awful lot of work to do.

"The big message this week has been how can we do things better," Day said. "How can we practice better, how can we coach better, how can we teach better, how can we listen better, how can we protect ourselves from this virus better, how can we sleep better, eat better? Everything has to be better. If we want to be great, that's what we have to focus on. If we want to just be another team, then we continue doing what we're doing. But if we want to be great, we have to clean all these things up and be better in all these different areas. If we add that all up at the end of the week, we'll keep rolling to get better."

Ohio State isn't taking Rutgers lightly, despite the fact that over the six consecutive victories they've posted in the series, they've outscored the Scarlet Knights by an average of 46.5 points per game.

"This week, we have to make sure we are on top of our game," Day said. "This team would love nothing more than to come in here and get this game into the fourth quarter. So we have to do a great job recognizing the challenge that they provide in all three phases and play as fast as we possibly can. We have to continue to play like we did in the Penn State game - physical, with energy and fast."

Of course, Rutgers opened the season with a fairly convincing win over Michigan State. They forced seven turnovers in that victory and got Greg Schiano's second stint in Piscataway off to a great start. They followed it up with a good effort against Indiana that ultimately came up short. But the Scarlet Knights are much improved and the Buckeyes have taken notice.

“Yeah I mean when you look at the team the first game they beat Michigan State pretty soundly, so that is significant right off the bat. And then when you look at them on both sides of the ball, he’s (Schiano) brought in some talent there. They are playing with energy, they’re playing tough, they're playing smart - so you can already see the impact that him and his staff are having.

“I thought the way we played on Saturday was excellent, but there are so many things that we need to grow upon and clean up, some guys in there who are really doing it for the first time. There's so many opportunities there and I thought we started off good yesterday (at practice), but it has to continue through the end of the week and we just have to keep working to get better and becoming pros at our craft. We have to take meetings to the field and just understand that now as the season goes on that they (opponents) are going to start adjusting, so you know we have to change things up. 

"I think that some guys are doing a little better than others and we will just keep getting better. That's what this thing is all about, it's not about who the best team is at the beginning of the year. It's about who is the best at the end of the season. Again, we didn't have much of a preseason or much of a spring season, so this is a huge opportunity for us to grow and get better. Saturday is a huge opportunity to take the next step so that's what we will be focused on.” 

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