As difficult as the conclusion of the last three regular seasons was for Ohio State fans, no one felt the consequences of losing to Michigan in three straight seasons more than head coach Ryan Day. In an interview with 10TV’s Game Time with Ryan Day on Monday, Day detailed the impact of the three losses felt by him and his family.
“We felt what it’s like to not win this game, and it’s bad. It’s one of the worst things that’s happened to me in my life, quite honestly,” Day said. “Other than losing my father and a few other things, like it’s quite honestly, for my family, the worst thing that’s happened. So we can never have that happen again, ever. And that’s been the approach all season.”
In each of the 2021, 2022 and 2023 games, The Game has been for the right to go to the Big Ten Championship. With a 4-4 record, Michigan has no chance of making the Big Ten Championship game this season, but the Wolverines stand in the way of the Buckeyes making their first trip to Indianapolis since 2020 with one regular season game to go.
When Day was asked in his weekly press conference on Tuesday about what makes losses to Michigan so difficult to deal with, he compared the rivalry to war.
“Not to get into too much of it, it’s just — this game is a war,” Day said. “And anytime there’s a war, there’s consequences and casualties, and then there’s the plunder and the rewards that come with it. That’s what it is. I just think that that’s really what it comes down to. As we all say, and it happened in my press conference, the No. 1 job is to win this game. So that’s the focus right now. I don’t want to get too much into the past, because we’re just focused on right now, and we’ve worked really hard to get to this point.”
The Buckeyes are led by several star senior players on both sides of the ball like cornerback Denzel Burke, defensive ends Jack Sawyer and J.T. Tuimoloau, defensive tackle Tyleik Williams, running back TreVeyon Henderson and wide receiver Emeka Egbuka, who opted to come back to the team rather than declare for the NFL draft in large part to beat Michigan. According to Day, the key for him and his players to manage emotions with everything on the line is to avoid distractions.
“To say that this team, and those leaders, and these seniors want to win this game, it’d be one of the biggest understatements of all time, so they don’t need any extra motivation,” Day said. “What they have to do is do a great job of preparing themselves, their mind, their body and soul to go play the game and then trust their training.”
Day and the rest of the seniors will have their golden opportunity to finally take down Michigan at Noon on Saturday.
