Ryan Day on 2024 Michigan loss: 'That was a very good team, but we still should've won the game'

In 2023, Ryan Day found himself on the wrong end of The Game once again. Ohio State fell to Michigan at The Big House in the regular season finale, marking the Buckeyes’ third straight loss in the rivalry affair.

For the Wolverines – who were without Jim Harbaugh due to suspension – it was a 12th straight victory en route to a perfect 15-0 record and a national championship. They were dominant throughout the season with a strong running game and top-ranked defense.

But the way Ohio State lost that game still sticks with Day. The Buckeyes scored with just over eight minutes to play to get within three points. Michigan then took seven minutes to eventually kick a field goal to go up three points, and a Kyle McCord interception sealed the Wolverines’ victory. But Day remembers how close Ohio State was to coming back.

“That was a very good team, but we still should’ve won the game. We didn’t. So why was that?” Day said on SiriusXM College. “What do we need to do? It starts with having the right people in the right seats and making sure the personnel is right, making sure the scheme is right, the coaching is right and you go from there. Those are decisions that you try to make in the offseason.

“Once the season goes, you’re building your identity, too. And you start to get the momentum and then, you want to get to the point where you’re playing your best football at that point. I don’t want to get into all that right now and some of those conversations. But yeah, there’s a lot of conversations that are had to figure out, why didn’t we get that done?”

Ryan Day: ‘Every year, you’ve got to … figure out what it was’

Before 2021, Ohio State’s last loss to Michigan came in 2011. The Buckeyes now find themselves in the midst of a three-game losing streak against their arch rivals, their longest since 1995-97.

Ryan Day said there are plenty of conversations about the matchup every year, but last year’s fourth quarter is part of the equation this time around. The staff tries to leave no stone unturned when evaluating what went wrong.

“Every year, you’ve got to look at it and figure out what it was,” Day said. “You look at the first couple years and you try to identify what exactly went on in that game, and you make changes. Then, you look at this game and you try to identify, okay, where were we in that game? Why didn’t we finish it in the fourth quarter the way we wanted to?

“So you look at all these different things and you make the decision and figure out, okay, how far off are we? Are there major changes that have to be made or not?”