To celebrate like Eddrick Houston did this past Saturday against Maryland, the Buckeyes must make big plays when those plays are there to be made. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Ohio State’s recent past is littered with losses in big games, so the question of readiness is on everyone’s mind. Ryan Day said Tuesday, “the challenge is right in front of us.”
Columbus, OH – Three games, all losses, all avoidable.
You know them as the Big Ten Championship game, the Cotton Bowl and the 20-point blown lead at Texas. All games the Buckeyes and the entire fan base believe they should have won.
Saturday at noon the No. 4 Buckeyes will get a chance to buck the trend at No. 5 Indiana when the last two national champions meet in a game no one for 100 years ever thought could be this relevant.
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Are the Buckeyes, with their Texas experience to build from, ready to win a top-five matchup? Can they stay out of their own way? The Buckeyes will answer those questions with a resounding yes or a disappointing no with no room for anything in between.
Veteran columnist Jeff Gilbert writes the OHSAA and Ohio State sports for Press Pros Magazine.com. Follow on X @jw_gilbert
“You have to stay focused for 60 minutes,” head Buckeye Ryan Day said at Tuesday’s news conference. “The challenge is to make sure we don’t take a play off, or these guys will hurt you.”
For the answer after 60 minutes to be yes, the Buckeyes – favored by 3.5 points – must show the ability and maturity to create explosive plays, limit explosive plays and generally make big, clutch plays when big, clutch plays are there to be made.
Can this team be the team they couldn’t be at Texas?
“That’s the challenge right in front of us,” Day said. “Here we are now, and against a team that hasn’t lost a game in a long time and are defending national champs.”
Day’s bullet points to victory:
“Whatever it takes this week to go get this win.”
“We’ve got to play clean.”
“Everyone’s got to do their job.”
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On Tuesday of game week, of course, no one talked revenge for the loss Indiana handed the Buckeyes last December in Indianapolis. Why give Indiana fuel.
“Everybody has their own thoughts and emotions,” Day said. “But as we talked on Sunday, and we’ll talk again today here at the team meeting, nothing that happened in the past has anything to do with what’s going on this weekend.”
Ryan Day says last year’s loss to Indiana is old news. But on Tuesday he said, “We can learn from the past, and some of the guys who played in that game can learn about all the reasons why we came up short, and that’s fine, and that’s good.”
For 51 players new to the program, that’s completely true. But for the guys who played against IU, Day wants their undivided focus to also be on Saturday.
“We can learn from the past, and some of the guys who played in that game can learn from all the reasons why we came up short, and that’s fine, and that’s good,” Day said. “But the focus has to be on right now, and that’s it, so that’s what we’re going to focus on, and that’ll be the message to the team.”
Rare is the Ohio State loss when the opponent – including almost every loss to Michigan in our lifetimes – was clearly better, and the Buckeyes didn’t have a hand or two in defeating themselves. They won’t defend their 5-3 record in the past eight games as just one of those things that happens sooner or later to every program. They blame themselves.
The troubling trend began against Indiana in last season’s Big Ten championship. Both teams entered undefeated, but the Buckeyes’ schedule didn’t prepare them for adversity.
Ohio State led 10-6 at halftime. Many times the Buckeyes have been close at halftime against good teams only to pull away in the second half. But Indiana’s team-of-destiny identity became a real thing in the second half.
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They shut out the Buckeyes in the second half even if they did allow a late drive that should have at least tied the score. The Hoosiers made a play and broke up a pass that would have been a first down.
On fourth-and-one, Day made the right call by asking Jayden Fielding to kick a 27-yard field goal. He missed. And Indiana won 13-10.
The Buckeyes had only themselves to blame. They advanced inside the 10 four times but scored only 10 points.
Plays like this pick-six by Miami in last year’s playoff loss in the Cotton Bowl have stacked up in Ohio State’s last three losses.
Left guard Luke Montgomery said that night that losing to Indiana wouldn’t matter in the playoffs.
“Don’t let it happen again,” he said. “It’s a bad day when you lose at Ohio State. We’re not gonna let that happen again. We’re gonna win it all.”
Well, Montgomery’s prediction failed to happen because the Buckeyes couldn’t get out of their own way in the playoff quarterfinals against Miami in their third straight trip to the Cotton Bowl. AT&T Stadium was a place of points left on the field and points given.
Miami returned a Julian Sayin interception for a touchdown for a 14-0 lead in the first half.
Fielding missed another field goal.
Miami sacked Sayin five times.
Miami converted two third downs on their game-clinching touchdown drive.
The Buckeyes lost 24-14, able to look good throwing the ball but not running it.
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After an offseason of reflection on consecutive losses, the Buckeyes went to Texas and built a 20-point lead. A number of plays they didn’t make from the late third quarter on would have thwarted the Longhorns. Instead, the Buckeyes lost 24-23.
What plays will be must plays for the Buckeyes on Saturday in the biggest of Big Noon Kickoffs?
A field goal attempt?
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A third-and-one on offense?
A third-and-10 on defense?
The Buckeyes want to win and end this losing trend simply because they’re keeping score. They also want the inside track to the Big Ten title game.
No matter what was said Tuesday by Day or Sayin, the Buckeyes want to avenge the loss to IU in last year’s Big Ten title game. It’s human nature. How sweet it would be for them to hang a final score on the Hoosiers akin to the 2024 regular-season 38-15 victory.
The Buckeyes – some of them at least – believe the Hoosiers stole their birthright last year. Two players – Nate Roberts and Eddrick Houston – said after Saturday’s win over Maryland that Indiana “took something from us.”
Sounds like the head coach might have told them that in the locker room after the game.
It’s more than revenge. He wants it back.
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