Ryan Day stresses process over result at Ohio State

Much of this season is going to come down to the final outcomes at Ohio State. However, in order to get those ones that they want, Ryan Day can’t stress the importance of their daily operations enough.

Day explained this in a conversation with Jim Tressel in a recent episode of ‘It’s All About the Team’. Simply put, he said the Buckeyes’ eyes can’t just be on the prize. If they are, they’ll unfortunately fail well before achieving what they hope to by the end of the season.

“If the focus is on the result? Not good,” said Day. “It has to be on the process. It has to be on your habits.”

“In matchup games down the road, in the playoffs, in the rivalry game? Like, if we’re not at our best in these areas, if we’re not getting better at our fundamentals, if we’re not focusing on the process? It’s going to catch us,” Day said.

If Day had a young group on his hands, it’d be tougher to get them to understand that approach. He has a talented, experienced one this season, though, which is why he’s expecting it from them and needing them to show their less-experienced players the way.

“Now, when you have young players who haven’t been through it before, it’s a lot harder than if they’ve been through it before and then not finish the way you want to finish. We’re counting on these leaders to be veteran enough to say, ‘Hey, man, we’ve got to focus on the habits and we’ve got to focus on the process – not on the outcomes of these games.'”

Again, regardless of what happens over the course of this season in Columbus, how they finish is how many will judge them. Wins in The Game, the Big Ten Championship, and the College Football Playoff are what is expected of them and almost no less. If they don’t attain at least some of those, criticism of them is almost sure to come after.

Still, for Ohio State to do any of that, they’re going to have to have their focus on the present rather than the future. From there, Day and the Buckeyes might be able to accomplish their goals at the end of the season – no matter what else that they might manage to do during the fall.

“I’ve shared that with our staff multiple times and I think that’s really something that we have to continually work on throughout the year because you can run off 10 or 11 games here and you have to make sure that the guys understand,” said Day.