Ryan Day Recaps Buckeyes' 52-6 Season-Opening Win Over Akron

COLUMBUS — Ohio State head coach Ryan Day met with reporters following the Buckeyes’ 52-6 win over Akron to open the 2024 football season. He spoke about the Ohio State debut of freshman wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, the first start for quarterback Will Howard, the outstanding defense, and much more. The highlights of everything that was said can be found below.

Great crowd today. Skull Session was rocking. Great way to start the season. Shout out to Archie Griffin and the impact he has made in his life.
What did you like about Will Howard? “I’m gonna watch the film.” He had good poise. He took care of the ball other “than the one crazy decision there” at the end of the half. It took the interior some time to get going. The offensive line was a little uptight early on. Chip Kelly did a nice job pushing the run. Then they settled in and played looser and had more fun. They can’t play uptight. Gotta be loose, “but I get it.” First starts are like that.
The young backups are in there to play and advance the lead.
Jeremiah Smith: “You can see the talent.” They’re gonna play through his mistakes. Sometimes you look at him and he doesn’t seem quite human, but he is. He’s gonna sleep well tonight.
They had a physical week of practice.
Jeremiah Smith is built different. The way his approach is, his size and speed. Typically somebody with his talent doesn’t have his approach. Nobody batted an eye at his early drop and penalty.
Grading the running game: He thought the numbers were going to be a lot worse at the half than they were. They weren’t far off. Just a some missed fits early on.
Chip Kelly knows what he wants to get done with this offense and that involves running the ball.
He can now watch film in real time, which is nice.
Great to see the defense create turnovers and get after the quarterbacks. The guys got their hands on the football and tightened up the coverage. The effort play by Caden Curry was tremendous that created the fumble return for a touchdown.
They were close in some of the kick and punt returns. You can see there’s some potential there. It looked better than it has in the past.
Sonny Styles had to move to Mike when Cody Simon went down. Very impressed with him today. Simon should be back next week.
Donovan Jackson is planning to play next week. He wanted to play this week.
Joe McGuire had a much better week of practice this week. Significantly. Should have given Nick McLarty a shot later in the game.
On not calling plays: “I don’t know what the film will show but I felt like I was shaking over there.”
It takes work and time to run the ball. It’s not just going to happen. You have to push through the difficult moments.
Thoughts on the defensive line: being disruptive and being dominant are two different things. Tackles for loss and sacks is dominance, but you can press and look for those things. You just have to trust your teammates and techniques. A lot of it is just effort.