After Ohio State's 56-21 win over Rutgers on Saturday and ahead of one of the biggest games of the year against Penn State this week, Ryan Day said made his typical Monday night appearance on the Ohio State IMG Sports Network's Buckeye Roundtable show to recap the Buckeyes' latest victory and look ahead to Saturday's game.
Ohio State's head coach praised the performances of both the Buckeyes' offense and defense against the Scarlet Knights, explained his rationale for keeping Justin Fields and the starters in the game to start the second half and looked ahead to this week's game against the Nittany Lions, a high-stakes showdown in Ohio Stadium on Saturday at noon that will determine who wins the Big Ten East this year.
A quick recap of what Day had to say:
- On Justin Fields' 305-yard, four-touchdown passing performance against Rutgers: "I think the last couple weeks, he's played well ... I thought throwing the ball, he's taken some nice strides. (Pass) protection is firming up a little bit, and I think the receivers are getting open. It's only going to get harder moving forward here these next couple weeks."
- Day noted that if you put together Fields' 305-yard, four-touchdown performance against Rutgers with his 200-yard, three-touchdown performance against Maryland, in which he played just over two halves of football, that would be one great game.
- On the Buckeyes' two defensive takeaways on Rutgers' first two possessions: "Any time you can get turnovers like that early, it's huge ... It's going to be even bigger in these (upcoming) games here."
- On Pete Werner: "His versatility is excellent. He can do a lot of things. He's very athletic, so he can do a lot of things in coverage, he can play man, he can play zone. He diagnoses plays well in the run game, and he's very physical. ... He's a guy you can count on, that really does a good job of being consistent and making sure he's prepared for every game."
- Day said he wants to keep his players healthy, but he also doesn't want to take starters out of games too early to potentially put themselves in the position to have to put those players back in the game. On Saturday, Day felt Ohio State needed one more score to add to its 28-point lead, so that's why Fields and the rest of the offensive starters played the first possession of the second half. "It's easy to second-guess when something goes bad, but you do the best you can."
- On Penn State: "Very well-coached again. (Defensive coordinator) Brent Pry does a really good job, has year in and year out. They've given us fits. They do a good job. On offense, they got playmakers. (Wide receivers K.J.) Hamler and (Jahan) Dotson and (quarterback Sean) Clifford, (tight end Pat) Freiermuth. They've got good players, and (offensive coordinator) Ricky Rahne does a good job over there on offense there as well. So a combination of good players and good schemes and coaching."
- On Saturday's weather forecast, which is calling for potential snow and rain: "I try not to get too focused on that, especially early in the week, because we know it changes." Day said the Buckeyes look at that more once they get to Wednesday or Thursday, but because the forecast often changes between Monday and Saturday, they can't worry about it now. "Typically what happens in my experience is whatever it says on Monday, it typically changes by the time you get to Saturday anyways, so we got enough things to discuss about right now, and we'll keep that on the back-burner."
