Ryan Day's Message For The Michigan Game This Year? 'Leave No Doubt'

They say football is a game of inches, but according to Ohio State head coach Ryan Day, it doesn’t need to be that way.

Or at least that’s the message for the Buckeyes this year, especially as it concerns the Michigan game.

The Ohio State football program has three stated goals each season: beat Michigan, win the Big Ten, and win a national championship. They have failed to reach any of those three goals in each of the past three seasons.

Those failures have not decreased the expectations for the Ohio State football program, especially with a team this year that could be the most talented in the sport.

Speaking at Big Ten Media Days on Tuesday, Day was asked about the expectations for this program in light of the losses to Michigan.

“I think when you look at it year in and year out, the expectations are what they are, and every year you have an opportunity at Ohio State,” he said. “You have an opportunity to win every game. That’s what the expectations are and that’s because of the great players and coaches that have come before. We certainly understand that.”

With goals such as the Buckeyes have, most seasons are going to fall short. No team is going to win a national championship every year, after all. But lessons are supposed to be learned in the failures.

“After every year you’ve got to identify what are the things that have held you back from reaching your goals, knowing that we want perfection and we want to win the game at the end of the season,” Day said.

Beating Michigan is the first — and most important — part of those goals. The Buckeyes have been close at points in each of the past three outings, but were unable to close things out in a winning manner each time.

“In particular, last year, what was it that prevented us from finishing off that last drive or getting off the field on defense? Why didn’t we do that? And it’s easy to say, ‘Well, it comes down to a play or two,” but that’s not really the case,” Day said. “What we need to do is we need to leave no doubt. No doubt.”

Last year, the Michigan game was the proverbial game of inches and the Buckeyes fell just short. Ohio State had the ball at the end of the game but still lost 30-24 in Ann Arbor. A number of slight changes to any given play could have changed the outcome, but inches and slights leave too much room for doubt.

And that’s the message to the Ohio State football team this year. Don’t even let it get to that point. It doesn’t matter if a final drive falls short if you’ve got a 17-point lead.

“Don’t leave it to one play. Don’t leave it to one call. Don’t leave it to one stop. Leave no doubt when you’re on the field,” Day said.

“We’re not going to get into all the reasons or all the things that we’ve done to try to address that and to get that fixed, but we have. We worked hard on that and we feel good about where we’re at going into the season.”