How Ohio State bounced back from Michigan loss to make a National Championship run

Leading up to the showdown against the Michigan Wolverines at the end of November, Ohio State head coach Ryan Day had some brutally honest quotes that show how much the rivalry means to him and eats at him when he’s on the losing end of it.

“Other than losing my father and a few other things, like it’s quite honestly, for my family, the worst thing that’s happened,” Day said in November. “So we can never have that happen again ever.”

It happened again and Ohio State has now lost four in a row to Michigan.

When Ohio State lost 13-10 to Michigan to end the regular season despite being 20.5-point favorites, things got ugly for the program in a hurry. Ohio State finished the regular season with a 10-2 record but fans were angry and pundits ripped Day to oblivion despite the program still making the College Football Playoff.

“This man Ryan Day, if he doesn’t get a National Championship, he should go,” ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith said last month.

While Day hasn’t won a National Championship yet, there’s no denying Ohio State’s turnaround since the Michigan loss has been downright impressive. The Buckeyes have won three in a row in the playoffs — a 42-17 win over Tennessee in the first round, a 41-21 trouncing of Oregon at the Rose Bowl, and a 28-14 victory over Texas at the Cotton Bowl. And now they’re 8.5-point betting favorites over Notre Dame in the National Championship on Monday night in Atlanta.

Ohio State’s renewed focus can be credited to how they dug down after the Michigan loss and cleaned up issues that led to that defeat.

“I think there’s some great stories to be told about what went on behind closed doors and some of the things that were said and the personal challenges that we had for each other and collectively the story, but the only way that gets told is if a banner gets put up in the Woody, that’s it,” Day said this week. “That’s the sobering reality of this game, that nobody cares about what you go through, and you’ve got to win that final one to finish the mission. That’s it for our guys, and as much as some of these wins have been great wins for us, to me, it’s about winning this final game.”

Ohio State defensive end Jack Sawyer also spoke about how the Michigan loss stung but gave the team an opportunity to reflect and rise from the proverbial ashes.

“I can’t even describe it. I won’t ever get over that loss,” Sawyer shared. “And honestly, it’s the type of loss most teams don’t get up from. Everyone blames everyone else, the program just kind of quits on itself, the next game they lay an egg — and all of a sudden it’s over. That could have easily been us against Tennessee, and I’m sure a lot of people expected it. But what those people didn’t understand is, for as harsh as some of the criticism was that was coming from the outside? Inside our program, it’s family.”

Sawyer said that after the Michigan game, the team took a week to digest it and then had a meeting. Sawyer said “Guys were upset, frustrated” and “tempers flared” with things getting “heated”. Difficult questions were asked in the meeting, and Sawyer credits Day for rolling with the punches and being receptive to the frustrations. This led Sawyer and Ohio State to choose a couple of paths forward.

“Option A: We could stay down after taking that punch from TTUN (the team up north), and already be defeated, and play the way most people expected us to play. Or option B: We could get back up. Be pissed off. Lock in. Go out there. And play our f***ing game,” Sawyer said. “We could quit, like we knew everyone wanted us to … or be the best team in the country, like we know we are. We chose Option B.”

Ohio State didn’t overreact or overcorrect after the loss to Michigan — they collectively felt it had more to do with mentality and execution compared to anything schematic.

“It’s not something magical or mystical,” offensive assistant Justin Frye said. “There was an alignment, an assignment, a communication error. How do you correct that and clean that up so you can play more violent and physical and with more confidence?”

No team seems more confident than Ohio State at the moment and with a win over Notre Dame in the National Championship, Ryan Day would finally silence his critics and become a legend in the eyes of the Buckeye faithful. It would put Day on the same pedestal as other great Ohio State coaches who have won National Championships with the program (Paul Brown, Woody Hayes, Jim Tressel and Urban Meyer), and it’ll certainly get people off his back for losing four in a row to Michigan.