Ohio State's Ryan Day Puts Players on Notice for Vital Reason

Ohio State Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day has brought one major thing to his players' attention heading into the National Championship Game against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
Jan 10, 2025; Arlington, Texas, USA; Ohio State Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day during the fourth quarter of the College Football Playoff semifinal against the Texas Longhorns in the Cotton Bowl at AT&T Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images
Jan 10, 2025; Arlington, Texas, USA; Ohio State Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day during the fourth quarter of the College Football Playoff semifinal against the Texas Longhorns in the Cotton Bowl at AT&T Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images / Jerome Miron-Imagn Images
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The Ohio State Buckeyes defeated the Texas Longhorns in the Cotton Bowl last Friday to reach the National Championship Game, but it wasn't pretty.

Ohio State committed nine penalties for 75 yards in the win, some of which were inexcusable infractions that kept Texas in the game.

Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day was clearly not happy about the miscues, and he is making it clear to his players that that absolutely cannot happen against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish next Monday.

"The issues are there," Day said, via Andrea Adelson of ESPN. "We certainly have the right and opportunity to persevere through those penalties, but certainly sets us way behind the sticks, and we cannot have that in this game. Efficiency is going to be something that we've got to do a much better job of if we're going to win it."

Perhaps the most egregious flag of them all came against running back TreVeyon Henderson in the first half, when he took a swipe at a Texas player after a play, resulting in a 15-yard unsportmanlike conduct penalty and ruining a potential scoring drive.

Based on everything Day is saying, we can probably expect Ohio State to avoid mistakes like that in the National Championship Game.

"But to me, the story of this past game was the self-inflicted wounds that set us back and allowed us to be in the game in the fourth quarter, when we could have done a better job executing and made it a little bit of a bigger spread down the stretch," added Day. "That's going to be the focus this week. We've got to play our best game against Notre Dame."

The penalties unquestionably almost cost the Buckeyes the game against the Longhorns, so they better be sure to keep things in check versus the Fighting Irish.


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Matthew Schmidt
MATTHEW SCHMIDT

Matthew Schmidt is a sportswriter who covers NFL, MLB, NBA and college football and basketball. He has been writing professionally since 2011 and has also worked for Bleacher Report, FanRag Sports, ClutchPoints, NFLAnalysis.net and NBAAnalysis.net. He was born and raised in New Jersey and has a rather eclectic group of favorite teams: the Boston Celtics, New York Giants and Miami Marlins.