Ryan Day's fiery response to Lou Holtz' criticism could spark Ohio State

Ohio State coach Ryan Day made headlines on Saturday night when he issued a fiery response back at former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz for suggesting that the Buckeyes weren’t a physical team.

Day went off, noting that people like Holtz ‘took a lot of shots’ at his team unfairly for its seeming lack of physicality. The Ohio State coach contended that his team proved that to be false on Saturday in a 17-14 win over Notre Dame.

But it was the fiery response itself that earned praise from the likes of On3’s JD PicKell.

“I think the biggest thing for me coming away from that is like if you’re in that locker room for Ohio State and your coach is out there just publicly defending you, I’m like, ‘OK, we’re in the foxhole with you, coach,'” PicKell said on the Andy Staples On3 show. “Like I’m ready to run through a brick wall and do whatever if you’re out there talking that cash to Lou Holtz. It doesn’t matter who it was, it’s just the fact that he made a statement for everybody and made it so fired up.”

That’s not necessarily a typical response from Day, who hasn’t often been animated in front of the cameras.

“To see him unhinged a little bit, I personally loved it,” PicKell said. “I think that’s exactly what Ohio State needs from him going forward.”

However, another On3 analyst isn’t quite as sold on the narrative about Ohio State’s lack of physicality being completely false, though he was also a proponent of Day fighting for his team publicly.

Andy Staples pointed out the reputation stems from a lot more than just Holtz’s one-off comments, which were made Friday on the Pat McAfee Show.

“That reputation goes far beyond what Lou Holtz said. That reputation goes back to the Michigan game two years ago, goes back to the Michigan game last year,” Staples said. “That reputation exists and Ryan Day clearly is bothered by it. I like that he’s pushing back on it because he needs to do that for his team. But I will say the way they gave up that last touchdown drive to Notre Dame looked an awful lot like Michigan two years ago and the second half of Michigan last year.”

Staples went even more in depth on why he still has some doubts about Ohio State’s physicality, even with the win on Saturday night.

“This is managing his own locker room, his own players. … He’s doing this to send a message to the team, not necessarily to anybody else,” Staples said. “If that’s what we’re going to get, maybe it works.

“I think if you look at last night, what happened with the last drive, that was a great call. They did get the yard they needed. Jet sweep on fourth-and-1 earlier, near the goal line? They didn’t get it. And I guarantee you everybody in Ohio State’s fanbase was going, ‘Why didn’t you run the play that you ran for Chip (Trayanum) on that play?’ If you fully believe that we’re tough enough to push them out of the way, then do it. So that’s the balance there.”

The good news for Buckeyes fans is they’ve got a coach and team that are potentially galvanized after the fiery response, and they managed to win the game against Notre Dame and stay unbeaten.

That just means there will be more opportunities to change the narrative completely down the road.

“That’s where it’ll be interesting,” Staples said. “When you’re playing Penn State, when you’re playing Michigan, do you do that? Is that what you go to? Do you try to just mash them out of the way? Because Ohio State theoretically should have the athletes to do that. But I think you’ll find that Michigan and Penn State’s defensive fronts are going to be better than Notre Dame’s, so can you do that when you’re playing them?”