- 19 minutes ago
Why it feels like Ohio State is out of answers, excuses for Ryan Day after latest loss to USC
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00:00Ohio State kind of needs to leave football back on Saturday right now.
00:03They need to take that energy and keep it all the way out on the West Coast.
00:07Yeah, no kidding.
00:09Like, maybe stay out there, in fact, until the Browns and the Steelers get this thing wrapped up.
00:13Because, like, dude, going into that game, you know, expectations kind of couldn't be lower.
00:18You're without Julian saying, you understand that's probably for the year.
00:21You know, you've got this true freshman quarterback who's probably my size, you know, going out there trying to do
00:27this thing.
00:28Against Lincoln Riley, who's fighting for his job, you know, a lot of people believed at USC.
00:33I'm like, okay, this might be uphill sledding a little bit.
00:37But then the kid played all right, I thought.
00:39Like, I'm not going to put that game on Luke Fahey.
00:42I thought he played an all right game.
00:45It was just that the team was unprepared.
00:47It felt like they didn't capitalize on the couple of opportunities that they did have, especially when they got in
00:53the red zone there.
00:54Just really disappointing stuff.
00:56Like, again, my expectations were low, but, jeez, I didn't get it.
01:00I wasn't expecting to get let down like that.
01:03Yeah, I mean, I didn't think Fahey was incredible.
01:05But, I mean, we talked about it on Friday night, obviously, getting ready for this game that was coming up.
01:09And there was no way I was putting this game ever on Luke Fahey.
01:14Like, bad situation.
01:15You had a true freshman quarterback walking into the – take the reins of Ohio State over.
01:20It wasn't a complete meltdown, though.
01:22Like, I can't put this all on him.
01:24Yeah, like, he went up there and he kept head above water, but literally nobody else decided to show up.
01:31The run game?
01:32What is the identity of Ohio State football right now?
01:36I think that's a fair question to ask.
01:38You know, like, maybe it's because I was a little bit younger.
01:41I want to concede that, didn't everything just seem a little bit bigger with Urban Meyer?
01:47Didn't it feel like the players were, like, superstars under Urban Meyer and just every game felt so huge?
01:54And you kind of knew there was no way that the Buckeyes were going to lose it, even if things
01:58weren't going their way like they weren't going their way out in Southern California last night.
02:03I just don't know what the identity of Ohio State is.
02:07Like, what would their offense be if it wasn't for Jeremiah Smith?
02:10I don't know.
02:11Well, that's kind of the identity right now, right?
02:13Like, unfortunately, it feels like the identity of this Buckeyes team is get the ball to Jeremiah Smith, which not
02:18a great identity when you don't have Julian saying and everything else around it.
02:22And, like, at this rate, you might have, like, three more games left of Jeremiah Smith.
02:26So, like, what's the plan moving forward here?
02:29I, you're asking a good question.
02:31I don't know where you go with this.
02:33Like, Aiden, you're dropping to USC.
02:35I'm staring down the schedule right now.
02:37Not feeling very good.
02:39Northwestern isn't bad.
02:41I mean, Oregon City on the schedule.
02:43If I'm...
02:44See, but we weren't talking like this in the Urban Meyer area.
02:47We weren't.
02:48Well, okay.
02:48Well, the problem was that I have with Urban is the fact that Urban would take care of the big
02:53games all the time.
02:54And, by the way, unranked USC is not a game that Ryan Day ever loses.
02:57Right.
02:57Like, that is...
02:58Which is alarming.
02:59Yes.
02:59Because, yeah, the Urban thing was, every now and again, it would just be a random team.
03:04And then they would boat race you.
03:06You know, it was, like, not even a fun game to watch.
03:09Yeah, and you would drop to teams.
03:11Again, just teams you shouldn't.
03:13Ryan Day's credit, those are the games that he has typically made sure...
03:17This team has never faltered in those games.
03:18Now, big games where you need to show up, you need your players to show up, that's a different story
03:24for Ryan Day.
03:24But, like, this was a game that he normally walks away with, finds a way to get a win, and
03:29clearly was not finding it.
03:31And, again, like, that might be the most concerning part of it, because now you're just staring down the barrel
03:35of Oregon Northwestern.
03:37You know, you got the game coming up at the end of the year, and you'd like to say you're
03:41confident.
03:43Could you imagine that?
03:44I don't think I want to.
03:45Again, against that Michigan team, and I know we're about as down on Ohio State this morning as you could
03:50possibly be after what you watched last night.
03:52But, dude, could you imagine, against that Michigan team?
03:59James was posited on a Friday night that it might cost Ryan Day his job.
04:04I would think not, just because you'd be set up in a situation where you're staring down a, hey, you
04:10lost your starting quarterback.
04:11You kind of get the free pass on this one.
04:14But I can tell you right now, you managed to lose to Michigan, and you just lost to USC.
04:19And who knows what's on the rest of the schedule and what those results look like.
04:23Yeah, I think there'd be some Buckeyes fans calling for Ryan Day at the end of the year.
04:26Yeah, I'm sure.
04:27You know, I'm out of answers, really, for Ryan Day.
04:31I'm out of excuses.
04:32I don't really have one.
04:33The one thing I do come back to, though, with that whole conversation is, like, who are you going to
04:37get?
04:38Are you going to call Heartline back, you know, after one season down in Florida?
04:43I don't know.
04:44No, it doesn't feel like it.
04:45I mean, listen, I don't trust anybody more right now than Ryan Day just for a situation.
04:50Two and four is his record against Michigan.
04:53You lose one more game and you lose Michigan?
04:56I'm just saying the conversation is going to get real hot and heavy about making a change.
05:01Because you can't lose the big games, lose a minor game to try to save your season, and lose the
05:08biggest game on your schedule.
05:10And have that record against Michigan.
05:12That's why John Cooper got run out of here.
05:14He could have beat Michigan one to two more times.
05:16That's it.
05:17Like, those Eddie George teams, those rosters had great teams that could have won a title back in those days
05:24where it was just one and two getting a chance to compete.
05:26So, that's why I say, if he loses one more and Michigan, that's just too much to bear.
05:31Because, like I say, Nick, we're talking about it.
05:33That game yesterday didn't look good from a play calling standpoint in the first half.
05:37Granted, you were down early, so you got to adjust probably from what your scripted set was initially.
05:42But it can't look like that from a play calling standpoint.
05:46And I get it.
05:46We're not trying to put too much on Fahey, but I didn't feel like that play calling did him any
05:50favors for real.
05:51No.
05:52It wasn't good.
05:53Guys, they're six and four in their last ten.
05:56Eef.
05:56That doesn't happen.
05:58That doesn't feel good.
05:59That doesn't happen for the Buckeyes.
06:01It's a weird state of affairs right now.
06:04It really is.
06:05And what I'll continue to fall back on, like I hear what James is saying about Ryan Day and the
06:10Michigan thing.
06:10You're exactly right.
06:11It is why Cooper, you know, got ran out of here.
06:14It's just like in the current landscape of college football with NIL and the transfer portal and all this craziness,
06:22you know the Buckeyes are in a down year right now.
06:25Like, I think we're at the point where we could certainly admit that with full confidence.
06:29You know you're going to spend some money, though, next year.
06:32You know, like, okay, if Saiyan goes to the NFL draft, well, I surely ain't rocking with what I saw
06:39last night.
06:39No offense to the kid.
06:41He's not ready.
06:41And Tavian St. Clair is on a milk carton, evidently.
06:45And how bad must that be if they're not willing to go to it?
06:50You know, you're going to spend money.
06:52You're going to get a quarterback.
06:53I just don't know.
06:54Like, if you fire Ryan Day, who do you call?
06:58Like, that's – and I'm willing to hear names.
07:00I am.
07:01But I just don't know that there's an answer that I feel like all the way – you're going to
07:05get Saban off game day?
07:06Yeah, no, that's not happening.
07:08I don't think so.
07:08There's no way Saban's coming off of a nice job with TV where he doesn't have to worry very much
07:14on Saturdays other than making it to work.
07:15Well, especially about all of the things that he's publicly stated that he hates with NIL on the transfer portal.
07:21And those are things that Day has done at least an all-right job at, keeping the Buckeyes relevant and
07:26obviously a national –
07:27you know, and I saw a lot of the stuff last night.
07:30You know, what would Day's legacy be if the 2024 team didn't bully him into winning a national championship?
07:35And it's like, well, that's fair, like they did, but at least they won it, you know.
07:39I mean, the man walked out with a national championship.
07:43Listen, you can't question what his legacy is going to be at Ohio State.
07:46It's going to be national championship.
07:48You know, that'll be the picture that hang next to the words Ryan Day on a wall somewhere.
07:53But fair to question what it looks like without Ryan Day.
07:56I just wanted to hit on the idea, by the way, where is the defense?
08:01Like, in what world does Ohio State walk against USC, the unranked version of this team,
08:08who has time and time again kind of failed this year to live up to expectations,
08:12and walk in and just kind of lay an egg and give up 30 points?
08:17I get it.
08:18Like, you're not getting the same level of production from your offense that you would have hoped to,
08:21healthy in this game.
08:23But for the defense to walk in and give up 30 against Jordan Maiava,
08:26and a team that has been struggling, is kind of wild.
08:29Yeah, and I thought Maiava was good.
08:31You know, I don't think he was great in that game.
08:34It was similar, though.
08:35Like, he was efficient.
08:36It was similar to, like, kind of what Arch did to him in the second half of that game.
08:40What is the—yeah, what is—that's what I'm saying, Jake.
08:43What is the identity of Ohio State football right now?
08:46Because if you have a suspect defense that lets you down against some of these bigger quarterbacks,
08:52you know, Arch, Maiava, you know, some of these bigger-name guys,
08:56and then you have an offense that's just stuck in neutral unless Jeremiah Smith has the football—
09:00I don't know.
09:01Like, I don't know what they're cooking right now.
09:03All right.
09:03Hey, Larry wants to get in on this.
09:04Let's go out to the phones really quick.
09:06Larry's in a Larry.
09:06What's going on, Larry?
09:07Hey, how's it going, Jake?
09:08Nick, you know, first of all, the defense, they lost a lot last year.
09:13You know what I mean?
09:14I mean, you've got a bunch of young kids from up to this year getting situated there.
09:19And basically, the offense you got, I got the hire of Arthur Smith.
09:22I wasn't really too thrilled with that.
09:25I know he was kind of there with the Steelers, and his game was running the football double tight ends,
09:30but he got too much talent inside of the ball here.
09:33But, yeah, freshman quarterback, too.
09:36Think about his first time coming through there.
09:38I mean, I didn't really expect it would.
09:42The rest of the year, it's going to be kind of tough.
09:44I mean, you know, start that kid there.
09:46We've got to go take the St. Clair next.
09:49It's going to be kind of interesting this year, guys.
09:52I don't even know, and Larry, I appreciate the call as always.
09:55I don't even know, like, I think he didn't probably play bad enough in this game to get benched.
09:59I don't think so.
10:00You know, it is, it's easy to make the excuse, like, down year.
10:05But the year that they won the championship in 2014, like, that's what that was supposed to be.
10:10And then they just kept losing quarterbacks, and then the next quarterback that would come in
10:13just felt like they were more awesome than the last guy.
10:17Like, it is a disappointment, and I get that.
10:20The game has changed so much since 2014 with recruiting and NIL and all this.
10:24But, like, I don't know.
10:26The kid certainly wasn't Cardell Jones last night.
10:29No, I mean, but, like, you look around.
10:31They had 260 yards of passing, 204 yards on the ground.
10:35Like, the offense was producing yards.
10:37Yeah, they were moving points.
10:39Like, they just weren't getting into the end zone at the end of their drives.
10:41I mean, this was a field goal fest.
10:44That's all this was.
10:45It was just a field goal fest for Ohio State, which you might expect out of a freshman quarterback.
10:50Unfortunately, when you get this deep into the season, they're like, you can't really afford
10:55to have a field goal fest and a freshman quarterback figuring it out against teams like USC.
10:59Now, college football playoffs, all that, like, you kind of do actually get afforded it.
11:04But I think people have higher expectations for Ohio State right now than walking and losing to USC,
11:09and it was go win a national championship.
11:13You can't be figuring out how to score touchdowns this late into the season if goal is win a national
11:18championship.
11:18Like, that feels like it's going to be difficult.
11:20To your point, it doesn't really feel like you're on a Cardell Jones path right now.
11:23No, it doesn't.
11:24And if you're looking for some silver lining this morning, I guess you could say, you know,
11:28the Buckeyes kind of factor into this belief that there are just no good college football teams this year.
11:33You know, that truly none of these teams are any good.
11:36So if you want to hold out on some sort of belief that they could kind of right the ship
11:39and maybe get this kid a little bit more comfortable with another week of work
11:44and try to run the table and get in and all that stuff,
11:47like, it is kind of still there for them.
11:49Just because, like, dude, the college football rankings are so bizarre every week.
11:53Like, there's new teams every week.
11:55Like, everybody's gotten upset by everybody.
11:58Like, it's just a down year in college football right now.
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