Ryan Day’s decision to not let Texas score was final nail in Ohio State’s coffin
· Yahoo Sports
Ryan Day saw his Ohio State Buckeyes build up a comfortable 23-3 lead through three quarters Saturday night against the Texas Longhorns in Austin. The top-ranked team in America seemed to be on a collision course with a massive and thoroughly convincing road victory. Then everything went south as Arch Manning woke up and the once unstoppable Ohio State offense bogged down. Texas scored fourth-quarter touchdowns to cut the lead to six points and moved within yards of the go-ahead score in the game’s final minutes.
Day faced a decision. With the Longhorns sitting with a first-and-goal from the 1-yard line and the clock at 1:23, the Buckeyes could have used their final timeout and allowed Texas to score. This would have given Julian Sayin the ball back with plenty of time to get in position for a field goal to win the game. It’s a plan Day thought about but did not enact.
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“I considered it, but I felt like at that point we were gonna go play defense and see if we could get off the field, but it didn’t work out,” Day said postgame.
Ohio State stymied Texas on first and second down, giving them a glimmer of hope but also allowing the game clock to melt down. Hollywood Smothers was able to punch it in to give the Longhorns their decisive 24-23 edge with 25 seconds remaining.
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“We did, we talked about it, and decided that we were gonna play defense,” Day added. “When we got that stop right there we said, alright, we’re going to take our chances, put the ball down for one yard and see if we can stop them.”
As a result of the time constraints and inability to stop the clock, Day’s offense put forth a desperate last fight but a chaotic possession—and the game—ended with an interception.
Day’s strategic choice is not why Ohio State loss and both options he faced weren’t great so it’s hard to second guess him. At the same time, allowing Texas to score would have given his team a much better chance to salvage the mess in Austin.
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