Ryan Day praises ‘urgency’ of Ohio State's roster

The mission is incredibly clear this season in Columbus. With that has come an overall focus and sense of awareness that Ryan Day appreciates from his Buckeyes going into the year.

Day spoke about Ohio State’s approach during his appearance last week at Big Ten Media Days in Indianapolis. For him, he feels a priority from his team to accomplish what they’re currently setting out to do. He can sense it and thinks others will be able to as well with how noticeable it has become.

“Yeah, I would say they’ve done that and some. There’s a great energy around this team,” said Day. “You know, they know what they want. There’s an urgency, there’s a purpose and they’ve come together. You can just see it.”

“We don’t want to create distractions for this team. We want them to continue to focus on what matters. But you can just feel it when you’re around the guys, you know,” Day continued. “You guys will spend some time with our players. You guys can feel it. It’s real.”

Again, 2024 is very straightforward for Ohio State. The expectations, and thus the pressure, are as high as any in some time for the program, specifically for the tenure under Day.

It begins with a regular season campaign where they’ll be playing for a conference title berth as well as demanding a win over That Team Up North to end a three-game losing streak in The Game. From there, they’ll look to secure their first Big Ten Championship since 2020. That then obviously leads into a spot somewhere within and a national title from out of the College Football Playoff.

Frankly, those are admittedly just the lofty goals for Ohio State during this season. The Buckeyes brought back far too much on both sides of the football for them to be anything short of that. They also invested and added even more in the portal and through recruiting as well for their roster for them to be anticipating for any less.

Day knows those desires for his team are only going to get them so far. That’s why the focus now turns to their preparation for this fall and doing what they can to ensure all of those ambitions happen for them by the end of their year.

“What does all that mean? I mean we’ve got to earn everything we get next year. Nothing is going to be given to us,” said Day. “That’s going to start on August 1st from the transition from the summer to the preseason. Here we go.”