“As you replay a few plays here, a few plays there really in both of those games, it’s motivating,” the head coach of the Buckeyes said Wednesday at Big Ten Football Media Days at Lucas Oil Stadium. “So what we did this offseason — I think you heard me talk about it — is everything we did in the offseason was about competing because when you’re in matchup games, it comes down to a handful of plays.”
The Buckeyes led early in both games but could not hang on. Each time, a handful of big plays swung the momentum to the opponent and Ohio State was unable to recover.
“There are times during the season where that’s not the case. We can maybe lose a few plays and still win by a few touchdowns (so) it’s like sometimes that can get unnoticed,” Day said.
“Not that it does get unnoticed, but sometimes you don’t feel the severity of it until you lose a game like that. We’ve been working hard this offseason to make sure that doesn’t happen again, that in every game, no matter who we’re playing, we understand that it can come down to a couple plays.”
Quarterback C.J. Stroud was among the players who could help cover up mistakes last season with spectacular throws, but he is with the Houston Texans now.
Day has not chosen Stroud’s successor, and he said Wednesday that is not a lock to happen before the season-opener at Indiana on Sept. 2.
“You’d like for someone to emerge during camp, but who knows if that’s going to happen or not,” Day said.
The competitors are Kyle McCord, a junior from Philadelphia, and Devin Brown a redshirt freshman from Utah.
Although Ohio State has gone into seasons without the starting quarterback spot settled and even some or all of a season using multiple quarterbacks in the past, neither of those things have happened since Day arrived in Columbus in 2017.
He was an offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach then when J.T. Barrett was a returning starter.
A year later, the job went to Dwayne Haskins Jr. after Joe Burrow opted to transfer to LSU.
When Haskins went pro early, Day found Justin Fields in the transfer portal and he became the starter.
Stroud won a multi-player battle to succeed Fields in 2021, seeming to be the leader most of the spring before being named the starter in August.
“You’d like to see somebody emerge, and then you name them just like we’ve done with C.J. and Justin and Dwayne. If that doesn’t happen, then maybe that is the case [both play in games]. We’ll have to evaluate it from there.
“We’ll see. I know that we’ve got to go in and win that first game on the road, so we’re going to do everything we can and do what’s right for Ohio State.
“Again, I’m excited to see these guys compete and go put it on the field. It’s different when you’re throwing routes on air and going through workouts than when you’re actually playing football. We’ve got to go start playing football here and figure out who the quarterback is going to be.”
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