Ohio State head coach Ryan Day did what he could to prepare his team for a significant disadvantage against the Miami Hurricanes in the College Football Playoff quarterfinal on Wednesday.
The Buckeyes had a 25-day layoff, and it showed as the Hurricanes beat the defending national champions 24-14 at the Cotton Bowl for the quarterfinals. Miami, meanwhile, had last played on Dec. 20 with a big upset win over Texas A&M in the first round.
The Hurricanes jumped ahead 14-0 in the first half, and the Buckeyes couldn’t rally in the second half despite a 14-10 advantage. Miami finished off the Buckeyes with a turnover.
âWell, I felt like it took us a while to get into the rhythm of the game. I thought we did coming out of the second half,â Day told reporters on Wednesday. âAnd by then, it was going to take a very, very efficient second half to win the game, being down 14-0. But I felt like at that point, we got into a rhythm. And when we had that drive there where we took a shot, it was incomplete.”
“And the next play was a hold that got us way behind the chains, and that was the drive that we needed to go win the game. And when you have a start the way that we did, you put yourself at risk of having to be really darn near perfect in the second half to go win the game,” Day added.
Teams with byes are now stunningly imperfect for the current College Football Playoff with a 0-5 record.
Ryan Day Prepared, Takes Ownership For Buckeyes’ Loss
Ohio State last played in November’s Big Ten championship game, and Day worked with his team to make up for the layoff, especially in the event of playing a team riding momentum from a big first-round playoff win.
âSo, we put ourselves behind the eight ball. We worked really hard during the last three weeks leading up to this game to come out of the gates and win the first quarter, win the first half, be ready to go,â Day explained. âI thought we had an excellent plan on that in what we did. I think the guys bought into it.”
“But at the end of the day, we didn’t get it done, and that starts with me and goes down from there,” Day added. âSo I take responsibility for not getting the guys ready. And as you know, we spent an inordinate amount of time putting the plan together to get everybody ready to go play in that first half, and we didn’t win the first half.”
“So, you know, we’ve got to figure out why that was and learn from it moving forward,” he concluded.
A Look at Last Year’s Fallen Four
Ohio State is not alone among teams that entered the playoff with high expectations and fell flat.
It happened to No. 1 and unbeaten Oregon, which got bulldozed by the Buckeyes in the quarterfinals last year. Likewise, 2024 Big 12 champion Arizona State didn’t have answers for Texas, and SEC champion Georgia couldn’t stop Notre Dame.  While Mountain West champion Boise State is considered a Group of Five team, the Broncos, which lost to Penn State, were considered among the top-12 teams last year.
All of the quarterfinal winners simply kept rolling from big first-round wins in last year’s playoff.
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