Ryan Day shares critical factor to beat Notre Dame

Ohio State headlines the Week 4 slate when they travel to South Bend for a top-10 matchup against Notre Dame this weekend.

Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day has been preaching to his team to lay it all on the line against the Irish, meaning he wants his players to play Ohio State’s brand of hard-nosed, smash-mouth football for the first few quarters and access the damage after the fact.

“It’s critical. I think that’s our mentality,” Day said Thursday about laying it all out there. “We have to go into this environment and embrace it and go get it. There’s no other way to be. Our guys understand that. They feel that this week and that’s the way we’re going to play on Saturday night. We’re going to go as hard as we possibly can and not look at the scoreboard until the fourth quarter. At that point, we’ll figure out where we’re at.”

Day’s let-it-rip mindset is something he’s mentioned multiple times since the end of last season, and plans on showcasing that against the Buckeyes’ first nationally acclaimed opponent of the season.

First-year starting quarterback Kyle McCord reiterated his head coach’s sentiment after coming off his best performance of the season against Western Kentucky. The junior logged 318 passing yards and three touchdowns on 19-of-23 completions in what was the fifth start of his collegiate career.

“That’s mentality you want to have,” McCord said earlier this week, via Letterman Row. “I think regardless of who you’re playing, that should be kind of your mindset, is just going out there and not holding anything back.”

Whether McCord is able to rise to the occasion remains to be seen, but the Buckeyes are loaded with weapons at his disposal on offense — so there’s really no excuse to not let it rip, as Day has said. He’s improved each time he’s taken the field this season, and there isn’t a more important non-conference game on the schedule for Ohio State this season.

OSU has two more expected top-10 matchups against No. 7 Penn State (Oct. 21) and No. 2 Michigan (Nov. 25), so it wouldn’t be the end of the world if the Buckeyes took a loss here. But it would turn every game into a sudden death match Ohio State for the rest of the season regarding a potential College Football Playoff berth.

With a lot on the line for both squads, the battle between the two top-10 programs is set to kick off on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET live on NBC. The Buckeyes will enter the back half of game week as a three-point betting favorite, per Vegas Insider, despite playing on the road.