The end of the Ryan Day era will unmask several issues inherent with the current environment at Ohio State. It has been a creeping thing since the end of the Urban era, really.
The environment is too corporate. So long as it's going well, everything is great. When that first real bump hits, when the talent level alone can't carry the day, it gets rocky to the point of not being able to settle down and just play. Expectations are one thing but it's deeper than that.
Tressel teams had that fire in them but it was business as usual on gameday. Urban's teams did and they never ever talked about how they had it. Maybe they would end up losing, but the fight was always there except in certain cases.
Day's teams talk about it, but you only see it in spurts. It's like the focus is always on "toughness" and "passion" and "fire" to the point where they don't develop the actual acuity for those things - that they just show up when you need them. That's now how it works. Ever. You either have it or you don't.
This team doesn't. Really the end of the Urban era didn't have all that fire part either but they were so talented and tough it, it carried them through for the most part. They would have some of those odd, flat, nothing works type games.
Day hasn't had those games for the most part, and if his team did, like say, nebraska, they still found a way to win it. Until today. In a game that you shouldn't be flat or not having things that don't work. They didn't find a way to win the game, they found ways to lose it.
It was his first loss to an unranked team. That shows two things: Remarkable consistency and remarkable consistency.
Remarkable consistency in that his teams are always able to bring enough to the table to beat all of the clearly inferior teams, usually handily and without much fanfare.
Remarkable consistency in that his teams are always good enough (usually) to hang with anyone on the field, but they always lack that extra push at the end of to get the job done.
Today is just a microcosm of an environment (I think it exists in the basketball program too to a certain extent) where, in the end, it lacks any type of edge. Killer instinct. Whatever you want to call it - this group lacks it.
And Booger McFarland can go fuck himself.