The cold, hard truth on Ohio State finishing its season by playing in the Rose Bowl is obvious: It’s not where the Buckeyes want to be.
Ohio State goes into every season with an expectation of making the College Football Playoff, which the Buckeyes failed to do this year. That failure is compounded by the Buckeyes’ loss to Michigan in the final game of the regular season, which also kept them out of the Big Ten Championship Game, preventing Ohio State from achieving any of its primary goals this season.
That said, it’s not as if Ohio State will be finishing its season in the Gator Bowl. Although playing in the Rose Bowl is no longer the goal Ohio State aspires to as it once was before the Bowl Championship Series and later the CFP came into existence, it’s still one of the most historically prestigious games in college football, and Ryan Day believes that will matter to his players.
“The goal that we have here is to win championships, and that’s a goal that we have year in and year out, and we didn’t reach that goal,” Day said Sunday. “However, we have an opportunity to go play in a tradition-rich Rose Bowl. And that means a lot. It’s a New Year’s Six bowl. 16th time I believe Ohio State’s been in the Rose Bowl. So there’s a lot of tradition that’s led up to that, and I know our guys are gonna want to play hard and win that game.”
The Buckeyes are still hurting from the loss to Michigan, and Day doesn’t expect that feeling to go away any time soon. He said multiple times during his press conference on Saturday afternoon that it’s been a “tough week” for the Buckeyes as they’ve been forced to deal with the reality of losing to their rivals for the first time in 10 years – a new experience for all of Ohio State’s current players and coaches.
“The rivalry game is the rivalry game for a reason. It means a lot to a lot of people. So when you don’t win, there’s a tremendous amount of pain, and nobody knows that more than the players and the coaches here,” Day said. “It’s hard to swallow. You can’t just move on after one day. It doesn’t work that way. Like I said in the postgame press conference, it’s gonna leave a mark and we knew that, and it’s gonna hurt for a while.
“I just don’t think that any of us have experienced this before. I know I haven’t experienced, and this school hasn’t experienced, Buckeye Nation hasn’t experienced this in a long time. So it’s a hard pill to swallow. So we’re gonna have to obviously take accountability for everything that happened and move forward. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy.”
Day also said, though, that the Buckeyes can’t wallow in their disappointment when they still have another game to play.
“You can only feel sorry for yourself for so long,” Day said. “You gotta move on and get back to work.”
Day believes the Buckeyes, who begin bowl practices on Friday, will be motivated to finish the season with a win in order to start washing out the bad taste that still lingers from the Michigan loss.
“I think everyone’s hurting from the last game, this is an opportunity to kind of change that feeling a little bit,” Day said.
Because the Rose Bowl isn’t a playoff game, one of the biggest questions that now lingers for the Buckeyes is whether all of their star players will actually play in the game. Opting out of non-playoff bowl games has been an increasing trend for outgoing NFL draft prospects in recent years, so there are numerous Buckeyes who will have reason to consider whether playing one more game in an Ohio State uniform is worth the risk of a potential injury less than four months before the draft.
As of Sunday, however, Day said there hadn’t been any Buckeyes who had indicated to him they wouldn’t play in the game.
“We’ll deal with that on an individual basis based on how all it shakes out, but right now, counting on everybody to play in the game,” Day said.
There’s little doubt that Utah will be motivated to play in the Rose Bowl. The Utes will be making their first-ever Rose Bowl appearance after winning their first-ever Pac-12 championship on Friday, and Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said Sunday his team is “elated” to be going to Pasadena and to try to cap off what’s already been a historic season for the program with a win over Ohio State.
“We’re really looking forward to it,” Whittingham said. “The entire Salt Lake community, we’ll travel well. It’s something that the community is very fired up about … all our guys are excited about it, and it’s going to be a great experience for our players.”
For Ohio State, this season will be viewed as a disappointment no matter what happens in Pasadena, so there’s more reason to question how motivated the Buckeyes will actually be. But finishing the season with a win in the Rose Bowl would still be much more desirable than going into the offseason on back-to-back losses, and Day believes his players’ pride and competitiveness will drive them to play well against the Utes.
“I think all of our guys have a lot of pride in themselves and a lot of pride in this team, and there’s been a lot of hard work and a lot of progress that was made all year before we started this thing. So we want to finish this thing the right way,” Day said. “And that’s really what the focus is on right now. I think there’s a lot of lessons that have been learned from the last game, and that will obviously motivate us moving forward. But right now the focus is on this Rose Bowl and sending out the seniors in the right way, and I know everybody in the program wants to do that.
“I think our guys are very, very competitive and they take a lot of pride in who they are and this team. So we’re gonna get right to work here this week and start grinding toward it and move forward to the game and play really good in the game.”
