Ryan Day credits defense in Ohio State 21-17 victory over Nebraska following slow offensive day

Ryan Day credited the defense for Ohio State’s 21-17 win over Nebraska Saturday afternoon, especially during an off day for the offense.

Will Howard made some nice throws when he had to, but the run game was not up to snuff. The Buckeyes needed timely stops and got over a controversial targeting call to outlast an upset-minded Nebraska team.

With a game against Penn State looming next week, Day was at least proud of his defense for setting the tone.

“I think it really came down to us really not being able to run the football,” Day said. “That’s what it came down to. So we really never controlled the game. We hit some big plays on them, I thought Will did a good job down the field with that. We had the big turnover here coming out, which kind of flipped the game. 

“But we talked a lot this year about leaving no doubt. Don’t leave it in the call of an official or whatever, take control of the game. Our defense went out and did that, and that’s what we needed to do. We spent a lot of time talking about that in the off week of coming out and winning the game in the fourth quarter, our defense won the game right here in the fourth quarter.”

Offensive lineman Zen Michalski went down with an injury so it seems like Day and Ohio State need to figure things out in the run game to be operative against the Nittany Lions.

“So it looks like (Zen Michalski) went out of the game,” Day said. “We’ll have to get an evaluation of that and figure out what went wrong in terms of the run game, but, but this is what the defense needed right here. We needed to be able to go out in the field and win a game in the fourth quarter. We did that. Still a lot of things that we got to fix, but, but we did that.”

Penn State went into Saturday undefeated ahead of a game against Wisconsin in Madison. For Day and the Buckeyes, it’s an opportunity to stay near the top of the Big Ten and avoid a second loss, which would hurt any College Football Playoff hopes.

“This is a great opportunity for our team to go play, and they’re going to see the same thing: a hungry team that’s gonna play really, really hard,” Day said. “And you know we gotta figure out the run game. But if our defense can play the way it did today, and we can run the football, and you know it’s gonna be what we’re looking for going to that game. So we got (to have a) great week of preparation, but that preparation starts now.”