Everything Ohio State coach Ryan Day said the day before facing Notre Dame in national championship game

ATLANTA — Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman and Ohio State’s Ryan Day held a joint press conference the day before the national championship game at media headquarters Sunday morning. It was a much more business-like, formal encounter between two head coaches — no comments about age or hairlines.

Here’s everything Day said at the event.

Opening statement

It’s an honor to be here. Our team is really, really excited about this opportunity and playing in the National Championship against a great opponent.

Both teams have had a great journey to get here, two historic programs. We know it’s going to be an electric atmosphere at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Monday night, and our team is really focused on their preparation right now and playing our best game.

On mirroring Notre Dame in the way of building the program through high school recruiting

Our philosophy when it comes to that is that we want to recruit high school players, develop them, and then retain them, like you said. I think a lot of people — there was a lot of conversation early in the season about our roster, but when you look at our team, the majority of our team are guys that have been here for a long time, fourth- and fifth-year seniors, and played a lot of football.

We always want to use the transfer portal as an opportunity to fill holes that may come up now with the way things are designed within college football. We do that. But we also try to make sure that we’re using a lot of great judgment on who we bring into our program. So when you look at guys like Will Howard and Caleb Downs, Seth McLaughlin and Quinshon Judkins and the guys we brought in, I think we only ended up with seven transfer guys this year, they all fit but they all made an impact on our team.

You don’t just walk into Ohio State or Notre Dame one of these programs and think you’re just going to get on the field. So they had the earn the respect of their teammates during the off-season, during the spring, and then during the season as time went on. Then as it goes, you start to build that team.

But this playoff system has allowed us to grow and build as a team. When you get to this point right now, you don’t feel like they’re transfers at all, especially when they get here in January. But ultimately, we want to make sure we continue our culture, and by doing that, you have to recruit high school players and then develop them and retain them.

On the impact of recruiting the state of Georgia

Well, Georgia has great football, and we want to be able to first build our foundation from the state of Ohio. That’s very, very important to us. But we also want to recruit nationally.

Georgia has really, over the last decade or so, continued to build and grow and develop young players, and it’s great to see our guys come back to the Atlanta area. Most of our guys who are on the roster from Georgia are from the Atlanta area, and when they saw that the National Championship game was in Atlanta from the jump, they were excited about that opportunity if it arose and we reached this game.

They’re excited. A lot of chatter in the locker room about going back to Atlanta, and they’ll have a lot of friends and family here.

On potentially losing out on marquee matchups like Notre Dame vs. Ohio State in the era of the 12-team playoff

Yeah, agreed. I think there’s a lot of things we’re learning about this structure, what comes with it, and those are all great conversations for after the season.

I do think that playing some of those games during the regular season, though, allows you an opportunity to learn, and with this structure, your team can grow and build, learn from those types of games, whether they’re on the road or at home, wins, losses, and then you build as the season goes on to help you maybe become more prepared for the playoffs, which is maybe a little bit different than it has been in the past.

On creating ‘we’ in the era of ‘me’ in college football

Yeah, first off, I think as coaches we get too much of the attention a lot of times. This journey for us has been about our players, our staff, our coaches. They’re the ones who are on the field. They’re the ones playing, and they’re the ones — there’s a bunch of guys who decided to forgo an opportunity to go to the NFL or whatever it was, other schools, to come back, to have this opportunity to chase this goal, and right now the focus is on finishing the mission of winning the championship.

But anybody who’s around our players and speaks to our players or interviews our players is quick to recognize what a special group it is, how mature they are. I believe that being at Ohio State, you have to up your game across the board, and every day that you’re there, every year that you’re there, you just grow up faster, you learn faster, you have to hold yourself to a higher standard. The expectations are extremely high, and that’s the way it is, and you embrace it.

But this group has been through quite a bit of ups and downs and twists and turns across the way, and each individual player has their own story about where they’re at right now, just like Coach Freeman was talking about, each guy has their own journey. But then also as a group they’ve had their own journey. Each class has had their own journey. The senior class has got a great story to tell.

Like I said before, those stories are not told unless you win it. So that’s our focus right now, is winning the game.

On the importance of fourth- and fifth-year players to get to this point in the season

Yeah, I think just maturity, physical maturity to be able to withstand the length of the season, mental maturity to be able to wipe the slate clean on a week-to-week basis and start a new game plan.

And then just the emotional maturity of handling the ups and downs, and certainly we know we’ve had a few of those this year, and being able to steady the boat and get back to work and learn from those and rally the troops. And I think it’s a great example for our young players.

On both Notre Dame and Ohio State having international players on their rosters

It’s exciting to see it reach the global stage, and there’s great athletes across the globe. These guys are hungry for an opportunity, and the same thing, we’ve had guys from Germany, different parts of the world, Australia, and they just maybe didn’t grow up in a football environment, so once given the opportunity, you can just see how hungry they are to go play the game.

As it becomes on a national stage, it just provides for a better game.

On treating this season differently because no college football season has ever spanned 16 games

Yes. Yes. I think you have to. When you look at the number of games that you could possibly play, you have to plan for that and work your way back. That’s sort of how we did that. We started at the end of the season and worked our way back. So there was a lot of things that we put in place to try to help with that.

I don’t think it’s a secret anymore, but one of the things in particular was on offense we didn’t play as fast to cut down on the number of overall snaps to make sure our depth was where it needed to be, the way we practiced, the sports science of it all. There was a lot of things we took into consideration knowing that this would be the run we would look to go on.

We’ll see. It’s all been up to this point, and it was all working towards this moment right here on Monday night.

On the Ohio State to Notre Dame crossovers on the coaching staffs, particularly with Marcus Freeman and Al Washington

Everybody at Ohio State respects Marcus and the fact that he went to Ohio State and had a great career there, and certainly have a lot of respect for what he’s done in his coaching career and what he’s doing. He’s a tremendous coach and does an unbelievable job.

I know James’ and his friendship goes back a long way, and like Marcus said, it really has nothing to do with this game, but I know they’re very close.

In terms of Al Washington, Al played at Boston College when I was a GA. And my first opportunity to be an offensive coordinator at Boston College, he was the running backs coach. We met at a Dunkin’ Donuts, and Al never knew anything about coaching running backs.

And I sort of talked him into becoming the running backs coach, and he said, “I don’t know anything about coaching running backs.”

I said, “Well, we’re going to sit down and figure it out. The first thing you’ve got to do is take care of the football and run vertical.”

He said, “All right, I can figure that out.” Then we went into pass protection. And then that year Andre Williams, his running back, became the Doak Walker Award winner that year at Boston College. In one year.

It just went to show you that it didn’t really have anything to do with the position, it was his ability to motivate players, his passion for recruiting, his energy. His wife, Melissa, is great, and I have nothing but respect for Al Washington.

On similarities in the way Ohio State and Notre Dame have gotten here

Well, similar to what Marcus said, I really don’t think that any of those things really have anything to do with what’s going to go on on Monday night. This is an excellent team that has just found a way to win week in and week out. I think they have over 140 points off of turnovers. They play great in all three phases.

You talk about offense, defense and special teams, these guys are really good on special teams. They keep you on your heels all the time. They fake punts, they fake field goals, they find different creative ways to get guys in the game. They’ve done onside kicks. They’ve done reverses on kickoff return. They’re very, very good in all three phases.

It’s a big challenge, and really the focus is about executing and making sure we prepare for this game, not the fact that it’s Ohio State versus Notre Dame. Nothing in the past matters and nothing moving forward matters.

I think to answer your question, the fact that these are both Midwest programs, large fan base, alumni base, have an opportunity to recruit nationally, I think there’s a lot in common there, and certainly everybody on our program has a lot of respect for Notre Dame.

On the amount of time players spend watching film in this era

Each guy is different. I say it all the time. Each unit is different; what is your routine, how many hours do you need to watch of film by yourself, 5, 10, 20, 30, 50. But the more film you watch, eventually you find something. You find a way to get a 1st down, you find a way to get a stop, you find a little tip that may help you get that one inch.

You think about some of these games, it can come down to one play. That’s what it is. And having the discipline late in the season to be able to watch — all right, let’s put the film on, watch one more hour of film. And for young players to understand how important that is and how that can help you win the game.

On what goes into preparing a pregame speech for a moment like this

Well, I think for us, the playoff has been a natural kind of ramp-up to this game and has allowed us an opportunity to get into a routine. I think when you start to make it bigger or change what you’ve done over the last few weeks, I don’t think that’s good. So what we’re going to do is the same thing we’ve done for the last three weeks, have the same routine and focus on our execution.

There will be plenty emotion running around on Monday night. So I think there’s a back-and-forth of recognizing what’s at stake but also just making sure we recognize the fact that it’s about our execution on the field. Certainly we know what a great opponent we have and how good they are, and so that’s it. That’s what we have to focus on.

But being in the locker room is a special moment. It is. But you all of a sudden can’t just like ramp a guy up in the last second to get a guy to go play really, really hard. It’s a buildup that usually starts at last 48 hours out to get your body, your soul, your mind ready to go play in a game like this.

On Ohio State’s mantra of ‘leaving no doubt’

it’s something we talked about all year and in the winter. There’s a lot of messaging that happens. When you play this long of a season, there’s different messages that you can come in and out of during the season, but we try to keep them as consistent as possible.

The idea of leave no doubt is don’t leave it to one play, don’t leave it to one call, don’t leave it to the photo finish, don’t leave it to the judges to call at the end of a boxing match. That’s it. Not that that’s easy, but that’s the reason behind it.

On Notre Dame and Ohio State both being programs built on faith

I had an opportunity to be at Boston College for nine years and experience what that was like and what an amazing experience going through the Jesuit education and seeing what that’s like on a daily basis. All three of my children were baptized there.

But then going to Ohio State and being at a state university, it’s a different experience. But it’s been amazing to watch this team grow spiritually, and I just think those three pillars of your body, your mind and then your soul and spirit.

We have Bible studies and reflections that we have that we’ll have folks come in and speak at, and we have been for a long time. But then also seeing our players lead them in those moments, but then there’s also times where I’ll walk around the corner and see a bunch of guys in a room together that we didn’t even know about that they’re having a Bible study, talking. And the impact they’ve made on our community and even nationally is significant here, and I’m proud of where those guys have gone in their journey.

Again, I think it’s a great example for some of our young players.