Ryan Day reacts to Ohio State's offensive performance with big lead at halftime

Ohio State finds itself with a big lead on Michigan State at halftime, heading into the locker room up 35-3. The Buckeyes have been dominant on both sides of the ball, but the performance from the offense in particular has been a welcome sight after they got by on defense the past few weeks.

Quarterback Kyle McCord has already thrown for 263 yards and three touchdowns while completing 21-of-25 passes in the first half. TreVeyon Henderson has made his presence felt on the ground with 63 yards rushing and a touchdown, and Marvin Harrison Jr. already has three total scores.

Speaking with NBC at halftime, Buckeyes coach Ryan Day heaped praise on his group for the way they attacked right out of the gate.

“It’s good to have everybody back and that’s what we expect,” he said. “Every time we go on the field we’re expecting to score touchdowns. I like the way we ran the ball in the red zone. Good to see us finishing the two-minute drill. That’s how it should look.”

Ohio State opened the game with touchdowns on its first three drives to jump out of a commanding 21-0 lead. That included a 19-yard run from Harrison on the opening drive of the day before he later caught a pair of TDs to add to his total.

The Buckeyes managed 360 total yards in the first half as they had absolutely no problem moving the ball on the Spartans defense. Now they’ll be tasked with holding on to the lead in the second half as they aim to improve to 10-0, and Day’s message to them is the same that he gave pregame.

“Just relentless effort,” he said. “Going as hard as you possibly can. We’ve gotta be playing our best football here. I saw all the time at halftime, ‘you’re either winning, losing or it’s tied. So right now we’re winning and we’re gonna do the same thing in the second half.”

The 35 first-half points for Ohio State against Michigan State is already more than its season average of 32.8 points per game. It matches the total from last week’s win against Rutgers and is already more than it scored overall in the two weeks prior to that.

The No. 1 team in the College Football Playoff rankings, the Buckeyes have certainly looked the part early in this game. With a big matchup against Michigan looming in a couple of weeks, they’ll look to continue to tighten things up and improve in every area.