COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Coach Ryan Day might have been understating things slightly when he said there’s a lot that comes with a loss at Ohio State.
Last Saturday’s historic fourth-quarter collapse by the Buckeyes in their 24-23 loss at Texas has brought angst and second-guessing usually reserved for losses to arch-rival Michigan.
Day spent Tuesday’s news conference going through the post-mortem after experiencing only his second setback in 27 games in September while trying to outline his hopes of preventing the loss from snowballing and impacting the rest of the season.
“It’s extremely frustrating, it’s maddening and we’re excited to get back on the field and get going because the last couple of days haven’t been fun around here,” Day said. “Had some really good conversations with the guys. I think they’re going to be in a good mindset moving forward. We understand we have a lot of football ahead of us. So this highlighted some things that we got to get fixed.”
It was the first time in program history the sixth-ranked Buckeyes have lost when leading by at least 17 points at halftime. Going back to 2004, top-ranked teams in the AP Top 25 were 197-0 when holding a 20-point lead at any point in the fourth quarter. Ohio State was up 23-3 going into the final 15 minutes before the Longhorns scored on their final three drives.