Ryan Day shares frustration with Arvell Reese targeting call, credits Big Ten overturn

This college football season has been filled with plenty of questionable officiating calls, and last week was no different when Ohio State took on Nebraska. A matchup that was followed with the Big Ten having to address two different separate instances where referees made mistakes.

One of those came in a crucial moment of the fourth quarter when Ohio State linebacker Arvell Reese was called for targeting and ejected from the game. A call that suspended him for the first half of Saturday’s game against Penn State before the Big Ten vacated the suspension following an appeal by the Buckeyes.

“I give the league credit, I think the easy thing to do has been just to say no. But they did at least stand up and say no, that should not have been targeting in that moment,” Ohio State head coach Ryan Day said this week. “Nobody’s more frustrated than me, but I keep going back to the fact that we have to leave no doubt.”

Day’s frustration was made very clear during the game through his reaction when the referees deemed Reese’s tackle a targeting. Nearly slamming his headset on the field and having to be held back when shouting at officials. A costly penalty that the Buckeyes were able to overcome and learn lesson from according to Day.

“It was a good challenge for our defense to say hey, no matter what happens in this game, we didn’t get that call. We got to get off the field and go win the game and we did that and so to me that’s the biggest lesson here, it’s going to be the same thing on Saturday,” Day explained. “I don’t know what’s coming and I’m not expecting to get a bunch of calls, because that doesn’t seem to just happen for us. So we got to go win the game and leave no doubt and win convincingly, that’s the goal.”

The Buckeyes will look put themselves in positions where calls made by referees cannot impact the outcome of games moving forward. Which will be a lot easier said and than done this weekend when they visit No. 3 ranked Penn State and try to overcome the challenges that come with playing under college football’s newer rules.

“It’s very difficult to try to coach these players on what exactly to do in that situation,” Day said. “I think what Arvell did in that situation is about what we’d expect someone to do and react in that moment right there, trying to go win the game with the game on the line. From what I believe, he keeps his head out of the tackle so it is frustrating to think with everything on the line you’re trying to teach the guys what to do. To be put in that situation is very difficult.”