Greg McElroy shares belief in Ohio State following win vs. Notre Dame

Ohio State came out victorious after winning Week 4’s headline matchup 17-14 over Notre Dame on the road, and lives to fight for a College Football Playoff berth for another week.

ESPN’s Greg McElroy says this sets the tone for the Buckeyes for the rest of the season, and explained how Ryan Day’s squad was able to pull it off in one of the toughest environments in the nation.

“Great win on the road. Didn’t have their best stuff but manufactured some good plays. They took advantage of some mistakes down the stretch and hey, the team that makes the fewest mistakes often wins and that team was Ohio State,” McElroy said on Wednesday. “It was a gutsy win. It was a massive win for Ryan Day.

“The game didn’t go the way [Ohio State] wanted it to go. In a perfect world, Ohio State wants to win games by manufacturing big plays. They’re able to strike fast. It wasn’t that way, they had to grind it out and find a way to figure it out by winning Notre Dame’s way. Which, to me, is more impressive than if they were to win the game 42-31, or whatever the final score would have been.”

Much was made of the Buckeyes’ toughness and physicality in the days leading up to the matchup. After piecing together the game-winning drive that saw running back Chip Trayanum punch the ball into the end zone in the final moments of regulation — Day was visibly fired up after the game, and rightfully so.

“This team right here showed toughness, they showed grit, they didn’t give up and they found a way to get that last yard,” Day said on the field after the game.

That drive alone silenced the naysayers and were rewarded with a No. 4 overall ranking in the latest AP Top 25 poll.

Tensions were brewing on the field, but that’s the type of emotion that wins championships. Ryan Day hasn’t been able to bring one to Columbus since taking over from Urban Meyer — the winning coach of the inaugural College Football Playoff in 2014. Those are shoes he’s looking to fill before the 12-team structure is implemented in 2024.

Now that the Buckeyes have moved on from South Bend victorious, they can turn their attention toward this weekend’s matchup against Maryland‘s high-powered offense before traveling to Purdue the following weekend. A Week 7 matchup against a Penn State team currently ranked in the top 10 looms after. All are necessary steps on Ohio State’s road toward its ninth all-time national championship.