What Ryan Day, Ohio State must do to rebound next year in The Game

The Ohio State Buckeyes are still reeling from a heartbreaking loss to the Michigan Wolverines in one of the best games of 2023. The Buckeyes lost to Michigan in a hard-fought battle, 30-24. That means Ohio State has painfully lost three straight in the matchup.

On Sunday night, Spencer Holbrook of Lettermen Row joined Andy Staples to discuss what the Buckeyes and Ryan Day must do to rebound in next year’s version of The Game.

What Ryan Day and Ohio State must do to rebound

Next year, Ohio State’s schedule only gets tougher with teams like Oregon joining the Big Ten.

“And they’ll go to Oregon next year,” Holbrook began. “They’ll play Michigan again next year. They go to Penn State next year. It is not an easy road to get back to 11-0 before you play Michigan in Columbus.”

“For Ryan Day, you have to block out the noise. You have to continue to block it out. And it’s just going to get louder. Which makes it even tougher. You’ve got to block it out. You’ve gotta figure out how to win on margins, because again, the last three years they just have not done that. And then you’ve gotta instill a belief. Like, there are still people in this building who have beaten this program.”

Ryan Day currently has a 1-3 record against Michigan. And he’s also 1-3 in the College Football Playoff. But, he boasts one of the best records in the nation outside of those two settings. In all other games, Day is nearly flawless at Ohio State, boasting a 54-1 overall record.

The biggest thing he said is the Buckeyes need to realize while it is a tough challenge in front of them, it’s not a challenge they can’t get past.

“This is not a Goliath. And it didn’t look like a Goliath out there. It looked like another really good team,” he said.

“I’ve lived this rivalry for 27 years. Tim May on our staff, he’s done this for forty years. It is a rivalry of runs. It always has been. It always will be. The 80s. 90s. Look at Michigan’s run. The 2000s and 2010s. Look at Ohio State’s run. Ohio State has to figure out a way not to make this a decade run that Michigan goes on. And that starts in Columbus next year in November. And again, I told you this earlier in the week, the clock is already ticking. Literally already ticking.”

From 1990-1999, the Wolverines dominated the matchup, winning seven during that time frame. Ohio State ended up winning two and one game ended up in a tie (1992). From 2000-2010, the Buckeyes dominated the rivalry, winning 9 of the 11 matchups.

“The clock flips back and they go back to, every single day you look at the clock until The Game and you prepare for it every day,” Holbrook explained. “It’s not that Ohio State hasn’t done anything different from what they did in the Urban Meyer era. And that’s why it’s so tough to figure out where they go from here because they’re probably going to an Orange Bowl that they have no interest in being in.”

In Andy Staples latest New Year’s Six Bowl Projections–he’s got Ohio State facing off against Louisville in the Orange Bowl.