The coach of the team that won the most recent College Football Playoff said not to call his new squad the defending national champions.
“We’ve said it before: We’re not defending national champions because now we’re not defending anything,” Day said. “You know, they can’t take the trophy away, so we’re looking to attack and win a championship with this team, and so that’s starting with the offseason and it’s continuing through July. I think we’ve had a great offseason, but now we need to have a great August as we heading into this first game, against Texas.”
Whatever you call them, the Buckeyes are set to take the field in just over five weeks against a Longhorns team that might be ranked No. 1 in the country, and their coach said they have much work to do on both sides of the ball.
Here are four more takeaways from Day’s time on the main stage in Las Vegas:
1. He’s excited about the defense.
The top unit in the sport a year ago, the Silver Bullets are rebuilding this season without coordinator Jim Knowles and eight starters, but Day liked what he saw in the spring from a unit now led by Matt Patricia.
“I think Matt has done a great job of building relationships already with the current players,” Day said. “You ask the recruits about Matt, they just have glowing responses about who he is, the way he connects, his personality. I’m fired up. There’s guys that we have to replace, but when you look at some of the guys that are coming off the edge, when you look at our back end, when you look at our linebackers, you see a lot of potential there, but we have to go do it. That’s why August is very important.”
He also stressed the importance of maintaining what was successful last season under Knowles, something they hope to accomplish with the return of assistants Larry Johnson, Tim Walton, James Laurinaitis and Matt Guerierri.
“We want to run ‘the Ohio State defense,’” Day said. “Matt was willing to embrace that.”
2. He expects a lot of continuity on offense despite losing Chip Kelly.
Brian Hartline has been promoted to replace Kelly, who spent only one season in Columbus before being named offensive coordinator for the Las Vegas Raiders.
“We’ve tried to keep the offense the same over these nine years,” Day said. “We’ve all worked together for a while. Brian and I have worked together since the jump on this. Chip brought in his own ideas, but we tried to keep the offense the offense. That was one of the things that he and I sat down and talked about on the front end that this is going to be the Ohio State offense. There are certain things that you like to do that we’re going to embrace.
“He made a few changes in the numbering system and some things like that, how he identified things, that we’ve carried that over into this year, but I knew that Chip may not be here for very long, and that was part of the understanding when he came in, but that when he left, you can’t just all of a sudden have a whole new offense, so that’s important.”
3. He did not have much of an update on the quarterbacks.
That is to be expected since none of them — Lincoln Kienholz, Julian Sayin and Tavien St. Clair — have taken a snap with the team since April, but Day reiterated he needs all of them to be ready to play this fall.
He said the same thing last year before Will Howard won the starting job as a senior transfer and started every game, but Day painted that as a bit of an aberration.
“He was an older guy who was experienced, and he was able to sustain the entire season,” Day said. “That’s not always the way it is. We have to build depth in that room as well. I’ve got a feeling they’ll all play throughout the season, but it will be a fierce competition to be who the starter is.”
4. Day backed Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti’s playoff expansion plan.
The Big Ten and SEC reportedly have been haggling over the format of the next version of the college football playoff most of the spring and summer.
Petitti confirmed Tuesday he wants to see a new system with 16 teams, a different number of automatic bids for each conference and play-in games for multiple teams within his conference, and the league coaches who spoke after him backed him up.
“I want to start off by recognizing Commissioner Petitti’s work and what he’s doing in terms of the new landscape here in college football and making sure that the Big Ten are leaders,” Day said. “I think it’s a challenge that he’s taking on and doing a great job of, so I want to thank him for all his hard work there.”
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