Ryan Day answers if Michigan game is a mental hurdle for Ohio State

The Ohio State Buckeyes entered their game against the Michigan Wolverines as the favorite this season. However, by the time the game had ended, Ryan Day and the Buckeyes had lost their fourth straight meeting against the Wolverines.

After the game, when Day was at his press conference. He was directly asked if the Michigan game had become a mental hurdle for the Buckeyes. It was a question that he didn’t know in the moment but argued each game is unique.

“I don’t know,” Ryan Day said. “I can really just go off of this game and what’s going on in this game right now. I think each game is a little bit different and unique to itself like you said, but the results are the results, and as hard as that is to say, we came up short here again today. And, not easy to swallow at all.”

In 2021, Michigan beat Ohio State for the first time since 2011. That snapped Ohio State’s longest winning streak in the history of The Game. It also began Michigan’s own streak of success that saw Wolverines head coach Jim Harbaugh win three straight times before winning a national championship and going to the NFL. He’d be replaced by Sherrone Moore who undertook a rebuild in Ann Arbor after numerous staff members and players moved on.

Throughout the offseason, it was clear how much The Game and finding a way to beat Michigan means to Ohio State and Ryan Day. He explained in the offseason that he was motivated by those losses to Michigan, and, as recently as the week before The Game, he emphasized how terrible it is to lose to Michigan.

“We’ve felt what it’s like to not win this game, and it’s bad. It’s one of the worst things that’s happened to me in my life, quite honestly. Other than losing my father, and a few other things,” Day said before the 2024 game against Michigan. “It’s quite honestly, for my family, the worst thing that’s happened. So, we can never have that happen.”

Despite all of that, Ohio State once again lost to Michigan. In a 13-10 game, the Buckeyes had two costly interceptions that cut promising drives short before the Wolverines were able to score late to take the three-point lead they won the game on. In the end, the Buckeyes were only able to manage 4.3 yards per play in the defensive battle.

Emotions boiled over after the game had ended when Michigan attempted to plant a flag at midfield and a fight broke out. Police using pepper spray entered and broke up the fight.