Welcome to the Skull Session.
The Eleven Warriors Morning Constitutional will start on a sad note, as former Ohio State quarterback and current ESPN commentator Kirk Herbstreit’s dog, Ben, died on Thursday. He was college football’s goodest boy. I will miss him!
This is really hard to write but so many of you have loved and cared about Ben that I wanted to let you know. We found out today the cancer had spread throughout Bens organs and there was nothing left we could do-we had to let him go. Ive had dogs my whole life but Ben was 1 on pic.twitter.com/jDvPTbNv2M
— Kirk Herbstreit (@KirkHerbstreit) November 7, 2024
Have a good Friday.
“THAT CAN’T HAPPEN THIS WEEK.” Following an emotional win at Penn State, Ryan Day said Ohio State can’t have a letdown against Purdue this weekend.
“We can’t be like every other team in the country where when they have a big win, all of a sudden, they have a letdown,” he said Thursday on The Ryan Day Radio Show. “That can’t happen this week. That has been the message to these guys.”
Every other team in the country includes some of college football’s elite programs. Alabama beat Georgia and fell to Vanderbilt (yes, Vanderbilt!) the next week. Georgia beat Texas and went all four quarters with Florida in its next game, similar to how Tennesee beat Alabama and went down to the wire with Kentucky. To be clear, this is more than an SEC phenomenon. The worst offender of it this season has been Notre Dame, who took down Texas A&M at Kyle Field but suffered a terrible loss to Northern Illinois at home (at home!) the following Saturday.
While he is proud of Ohio State's win at Penn State, Ryan Day wants cleaner football and better execution against a Purdue team he thinks is "better than their record shows." https://t.co/SAQ6WLI9yn
— Eleven Warriors (@11W) November 7, 2024
All those instances – and I am sure there are more I didn’t mention – have to be in the back of Day’s mind as his team prepares to face 1-7 Purdue in Columbus. The sixth-year head coach said Ohio State’s veteran leadership will be crucial for the program to maintain the same level of intensity for the rest of the regular season, which includes matchups with Purdue, Northwestern, No. 8 Indiana and Michigan.
“Just like last week, the leaders and the best players have to play their best game. It’s the same thing this week,” Day said. “We’ll preach it until we’re blue in the face. We have to go out there and we have to do it. That’s led by the seniors and the leaders.”
STARTED WITH 100 BRICKS (BRICKS! BRICKS! BRICKS!) The Buckeyes added a new tradition this season: After each of Ohio State’s practices and games, the team adds a brick to a wall outside the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.
“It started in the preseason. It’s about the foundation that you build toward November and toward the end of the season,” Day said Thursday. “Every day, you are building. You are putting a brick in the foundation. You don’t necessarily know how strong your foundation is until you reach a storm. It’s like a house.”
Day said Ohio State’s players lay a gray brick after each practice and a scarlet brick after each game. He and the program’s leadership council – which includes captains Cody Simon, Emeka Egbuka, TreVeyon Henderson and Jack Sawyer, in addition to some other veterans – decide who places the rectangular block.
“We hand a brick to one of the guys after every practice. They go over and make sure they put that brick right in the foundation over there,” he said. “You take pride in how you do it. If you want your house to be built the right way, if you want your foundation to be built strong, you take pride in that brick. You make sure the edges are exactly right. You make sure that brick is strong. How do you do that? You have a great day of practice and then you put a brick over there.”
Game 9. Our Honor Defend. pic.twitter.com/k3tSfTxfk3
— Ohio State Football (@OhioStateFB) November 6, 2024
With dozens of bricks placed since Aug. 1, Day said Ohio State’s foundation has solidified from preseason camp to Week 11.
“It’s our foundation against their foundation as we get into November,” Day said, looking ahead to Purdue, Northwestern, Indiana and – last but not least – Michigan. “That’s been the whole idea is that our foundation holds up in November. We use that as a reminder that this is our foundation. We have to keep building that.”
Unrelated to his comments about bricks and foundations, Day said Thursday that Ohio State has been tested more to this point in the season than it has in the past. That point reminded me of one Day made above – that “you don’t necessarily know how strong your foundation is until you reach a storm.” The Buckeyes faced some considerable storms the past four weeks with their loss to Oregon and come-from-behind wins over Nebraska and Penn State.
“There’s been times in the past where I wasn’t sure going into November how tested we really were as a team in years past. I know we’ve been tested this year. That part is good.” Day said. “The fact that we’ve had two fourth-down stands inside the 5-yard line in back-to-back weeks is a great sign for our defense and our team. So is the way our offense finished the (Penn State) game and won the four-minute drill.”
As Ohio State looks to close the regular season undefeated – and 11-1 overall – Day hopes the Buckeyes can learn from those experiences and lean on their foundation week-to-week.
“We need to start playing cleaner football. We need to execute better so that we’re up a couple of scores in the fourth quarter,” Day said. “That’s gonna be the challenge this week. We have to execute better and continue to play physically. We want to play our best football here in November. Those are the two things that have to happen for us to go undefeated.”
“I LOST ABOUT A WEEK OF MY LIFE.” One final moment I want to address from The Ryan Day Radio Show was Day’s hilarious description of Jelani Thurman’s crucial fourth-down catch in the Penn State game.
“That thing was all over the place,” Day said. “He got three catches and three drops all in one play. I lost about a week of my life on that play.”
Same, Coach. Same.
He continued: “The best part was Jermaine Mathews was there pushing me after we got (the first down). He was so jacked up that we went for it on fourth down and got it. Jack and JT (Tuimoloau) were screaming at me. The whole sideline in that game was just on fire. The fact that we went for it and Jelani made that play had a big part in the game. There was a feel like, ‘It’s 4th-and-1. We’re gonna be aggressive on this. Go get it.’”
Day admitted that it made him sick to his stomach that Ohio State couldn’t capitalize on Thurman’s clutch reception, as Howard fumbled the ball out of the end zone later in the possession.
“You could literally throw up on the field. You just get sick. It’s like, how did that just happen? All the work you put in to get the ball down there, and the ball just went out at the 2-yard line in that moment,” Day said. “But you can’t get sick for long. You have to move on. As hard as it is, in that moment, you have to move on. You have to keep playing. That’s what resilience is all about.”
Ohio State showed incredible resilience from that point forward. On the ensuing Penn State possession, Davison Igbinosun picked off Drew Allar in the end zone to prevent a touchdown. In the second half, the Buckeyes scored two field goals and limited the Nittany Lions to one. They also made a goal-line stand and executed a four-minute offense to perfection to leave State College with a 20-13 win.
SOUND OFF. Ohio State faces Purdue this weekend. I haven’t talked about that much this week. But to be fair, neither have the Buckeyes or the Boilermakers, save for a few comments from Day and a few comments from Ryan Walters. I scrounged up the latter coach’s remarks to end the Skull Session. Here’s what Walters said about Ohio State’s talent, as well as its offense and defense this week:
On Ohio State’s coaches, roster
“They’re team in its entirety is a very, very talented roster. You couple the talented roster with the level of coaching that is at Ohio State — I got a lot of respect for a lot of those guys on the staff there — that’s how you get a team like Ohio State.”
“Obviously, it’s gonna be a big challenge. Looking forward to playing in a venue that’s as historic as Ohio State’s. Looking forward to going to compete against the best. That’s why you play in this conference. That’s why you come to a school like Purdue. It’s to go compete with and give your all against some of the better teams in the country.”
On Ohio State’s offense
“They are able to be balanced because of the amount of playmakers they have on the field. Their top two running backs are two of the better backs in the country (TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins). Their tight ends are versatile both in the run game and in the pass game. And then the history of the wideouts that they have there sort of speaks for itself. They have as talented a freshman receiver as we’ve seen (Jeremiah Smith).”
On Ohio State’s defense
“You see a lot of guys on the field that you’re gonna see on Sundays. I think they have depth at a lot of different positions as well, so they stay fresh. They throw a lot of different coverages at you to keep you off-balance. They have two of the better man-cover corners in our league (Denzel Burke and Davison Igbinosun).”
No offense to Day, but I think Ohio State drills Purdue tomorrow. Spoiler for my score prediction: Buckeyes a lot, Boilermakers a little.
SONG OF THE DAY. "Baby, I Love Your Way" - Peter Frampton.
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