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tOSU at Notre Dame, Sat. 9/23, 7:30pm EST, NBC

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On Wednesday, that’s a love Ohio State’s players said they felt. They didn't need to see their coach have an emotional outpour on national television to know that he cares for them, but they stand behind Day’s emotions and the things he said.

“I fully support everything Coach Day said and everything that he’s going to say in the future,” Ohio State wide receiver Emeka Egbuka said. “That’s my head coach. We’re all going to rally behind him and we believe he can get us to where we want to be.”

McCord felt the authenticity in Day’s comments. He wanted to make it known that the feeling was mutual, and given the chance he and his teammates would go to bat for Day in the same way.

“It means a lot,” McCord said. “I think every single guy on this team has Coach Day’s back, and we all know that he has ours. And for him to go do that, I think it showed his true emotion and how he feels about this team. I think that fired the guys up a lot. You don’t really see too many head coaches after a game like that show that type of emotion, and for him to do that on that type of a stage, it showed everyone on the team how much he cares about us.”

Ohio State linebacker Cody Simon didn’t give his thoughts on Day’s reaction specifically, but like Egbuka and McCord, he thought it was another expression of the love his coach has for his players.

“I don’t have any comments on his comments, but we felt his love for us and we felt like he always has our back,” Simon said. “In turn, we have his back. Before the game, we always say we’re behind Coach Day no matter what. He’s our leader. It came out in a lot of emotion at the end of the game, and we love to have people who care and people who we know have our back.”
 
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FILM STUDY: BOTH TEAMS MADE IMPORTANT ADJUSTMENTS THROUGHOUT OHIO STATE'S STUNNING WIN IN SOUTH BEND​

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There are plenty of reasons to question the decision-making of both Ryan Day and Marcus Freeman following last Saturday's barn-burner in South Bend. But to pretend as though they and their staffs hadn't engaged in a high-level chess match prior to a series of blunders questionable choices in the game's waning moments is naive at best and downright disingenuous at worst.

The second matchup in the home-and-home series was a very different game than the one that took place a year earlier inside Ohio Stadium. This time, in the shadow of Touchdown Jesus, both teams seemed intent on imposing their will at the line of scrimmage without giving up an explosive play downfield.

Despite a low score with just 31 combined points, it was still a remarkably well-played game, as both teams averaged over 5.5 yards per play offensively, failed to turn the ball over, and combined for just 9 total penalties and one sack allowed. Though they went a surprising 0-4 in 4th & 1 situations, they were 15-27 (55.5%) on third down, significantly higher than the national average (41%).

While both teams should feel good about the way they played that night overall, there are certainly some areas in which they'll wish they'd been better.
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It's a shame that so much of the discussion around such a tightly contested game has surrounded things that happened off the field. Wrestling promos aside, it almost seems as if both fanbases are upset about what their coaches did NOT do (i.e. call a different play on 4th & 1 or insert the 11th defender).

But while those individual moments are certainly worth investigating, it's important to keep those choices in proper context. Both teams prepared smart game plans, put their players in positions to succeed, and adjusted properly as the game wore on. That's good coaching.
 
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