The first three weeks of the season were a roller coaster for Ohio State, with the team picking up questionable wins over Indiana and Youngstown State before blowing out Western Kentucky this past weekend, setting the stage for the Buckeyes’ biggest test thus far this campaign.
Sixth-ranked Ohio State will travel to face No. 9 Notre Dame, a rematch of last season’s opener in which the Buckeyes picked up a 21-10 win in Columbus. But this time around, it will be on the Fighting Irish’s turf, not to mention the addition of former Wake Forest quarterback Sam Hartman, the ACC’s all-time leader in passing touchdowns. Those factors are not scaring off Ohio State, which – through those struggles in the first fourth of the season – is building up confidence heading into Saturday.
“I think you build up in these first few games to figure out where you are going into this game and you go from there,” head coach Ryan Day said Tuesday. “But I think that we’ve got some confidence going into this game, got a rhythm, so we’re got to have a great week of practice.”
Those practices will include a heavy emphasis on winning at the line of scrimmage and ensuring that the team is prepared for a four-quarter battle, as Day said Notre Dame is a “really good team,” with head coach Marcus Freeman doing an admirable a job in his second season with the Fighting Irish. And the allure of not only facing Notre Dame, but doing so in a top-10 matchup on the road, has the team excited to kick off on Saturday.
“We’ve got to go win a top-10 game on the road, and our guys are really excited for this game,” Day said. “You could see it Sunday, you could see it yesterday, guys buzzing around. We’ve got to have a great week of practice, and this is going to come down to who wants to compete more.”
Developing that level of compete – not to mention winning at the line of scrimmage – has been among the factors that Day believes the team has been able to fine-tune through the first three weeks of the season in preparation for Notre Dame. With three games under their belt, Day has a better sense of where the team stands, and it’s one he believes is ready for the challenge presented by the Irish.
“I’m glad that we went through those three games to get to this point with some of the new faces that we had, and we did work out some of the issues and so excited to get on the field and go play this one now,” he said. “I think that we have a pretty good idea of who our team is and where we’re at, so now it’s time to go play.”
