The 2022 Rose Bowl is set.
With their teams less than a month away from a New Year's Day showdown in Pasadena, Ryan Day and Kyle Whittingham previewed the matchup between the Buckeyes and Utes during a teleconference with the media on Sunday.
Here's a full rundown of everything the Ohio State and Utah head coaches said just a few hours after learning they will meet in California to close out their respective seasons in January.
Ryan Day & Kyle Whittingham
- Day says "certainly know this is going to be a challenging month and a great game." Day says the team was excited to find out it was playing in the Rose Bowl.
- Whittingham says "everybody in Salt Lake is elated" to be going to the Rose Bowl. Whittingham says "there is no weakness" when looking at what Ohio State can do.
- When asked about his head coach at New Hampshire, Sean McDonnell, Day says he's "sad to see" him retiring, but that he is "one of the best in college football."
- Whittingham says the Utes were "finally be able to get over that mountain" in getting to the Rose Bowl.
- On the 2019 Rose Bowl, Day says having Urban Meyer put the whistle over his head "meant a lot to me," but that it feels like it happened "20 years ago."
- On enduring through the tragic loss of two players over the course of the past year, Whittingham says Utah "banded together" and that it was "the most difficult thing I've ever been through as a football coach, hands down."
- Whittingham calls LB Devin Lloyd "the best defender that's ever come through" the Utah program. Whittingham says he will be "without a doubt" the highest drafted defensive player the program has produced.
- Whittingham says he's gotten more than 600 texts since winning the Pac-12 title, and that he just got around to responding to them all today. "We'll have a very good turnout at the Rose Bowl as far as Utah fans traveling to that game."
- On Urban Meyer, Day says he's "forever in debt for what he's done for my family and I."
- Whittingham says he had the same whistle ceremony at Utah with Meyer that Day had at Ohio State at the 2019 Rose Bowl.
