COLUMBUS — The first batch of College Football Playoff rankings came out on Tuesday night. Ohio State was ranked No. 12 coming off a loss to USC last week. The Buckeyes will face No. 23 Oregon on Saturday.
A path to the playoff still exists for the Buckeyes, as long as they can overcome the issues that were apparent in that loss to the Trojans. Here’s what we heard from OSU head coach Ryan Day about some of those problems on Tuesday:
1. The most vulnerable Day got during his time answering questions about a second loss came at the very end, when veteran reporter Tim May asked if Day feels like his team is close to breaking through to being what it needs to be to make a title run.
“I would’ve said coming into the (USC) game that we were very close,” Day said. “I didn’t feel that way coming out of the game. Just being dead honest.”
Day didn’t say that to project that he thinks his team can’t get there, but he admitted he had the wrong read on his team before it entered its eighth game of the season. The mistakes against the Trojans, including a season-high 11 penalties and more red-zone struggles, seemed to blindside Day — even though they have been a problem at other points this season.
“The penalties are ridiculous. The mistakes are ridiculous,” Day said. “That leads me to believe that we’re not where we need to be. We have an opportunity against Oregon now to go turn that around.”