Ryan Day reveals how Ohio State will find energy for Rose Bowl

Ohio State may have missed out on the College Football Playoff, but the Buckeyes still have a big postseason game to play in as they’ll take on the Utah Utes in the prestigious Rose Bowl on Jan. 1 in Pasadena, California.

After losing to Michigan and falling out of College Football Playoff contention, Ohio State fell short of its ultimate goal of winning a national championship. While the setback hurt, Buckeyes’ head coach Ryan Day said that his team has regrouped and is putting in plenty of preparation ahead of their matchup with Utah in the Rose Bowl.

“I think a lot of our guys have a lot of pride in themselves and a lot of pride in this team,” Day said. “There’s been a lot of hard work and a lot of progress that was made all year from when we started this thing. We want to finish this thing the right way. We have a really good opponent in Utah, great bowl in the Rose Bowl, and so we want to have a great month.”

Now in the winter months and with sicknesses going around, Ohio State has had multiple players come down with various illnesses, but Day said that the team took a break from practices and allowed those guys to get healthy. With many of them back now, the Buckeyes are beginning to follow a specific timeline heading into the Rose Bowl at the start of the new year.

“We worked out a little bit last week, we’re going to do that again this week and then start our practice,” Day said. “It’s really in three phases – we’re going to start on fundamentals, then we’ll get into game-planning and then we’ll get to the bowl site and have game week there. That’s really what the focus is on right now.

“I think there’s a lot of lessons that have been learned from the last game, and that’ll obviously motivate us moving forward. But right now, the focus is on this Rose Bowl and sending out the seniors in the right way – and I know everybody in the program wants to do that.”

Ranked No. 6 in the final College Football Playoff Top 25 of the season, Ohio State and Utah – which is ranked No. 11 – are scheduled to kickoff at 5 p.m. ET on Jan. 1 in Pasadena. ESPN will be carrying the national broadcast.