Ryan Day after Ohio State upset in CFP: 'We put ourselves behind the 8-ball'

The Buckeyes could not dig themselves out of a 14-0 hole against Miami

By Carter Bahns

Jan 1, 2026 at 12:30 am ET • 8 min read

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The quest for a repeat national championship is over. No. 2 Ohio State lost its second consecutive game in a 24-14 upset at the hands of No. 10 Miami and fell out of the College Football Playoff bracket in surprise fashion.

Buckeyes coach Ryan Day, bewildered by his game plan's ineffectiveness, lamented the slow offensive start to a contest that his team never led. Ohio State went scoreless in the first half of a game for the first time since the 2016 CFP semifinals, and the 14-0 hole it fell into proved too deep to overcome.

"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 said postgame. "We put ourselves behind the 8-ball."

The backbreaking play came in the second quarter when quarterback Julian Sayin threw an interception to star Miami defensive back Keionte Scott, who returned it 72 yards for a pick-six. The touchdown put the Hurricanes up by two possessions, and while Ohio State surged over the ensuing two quarters to draw within three points, it was never able to get over the hump.

Below is everything Day said after the loss to Miami in the Cotton Bowl.

On whether the first-round bye contributed to the slow start:

"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. 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. 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. That was the drive that we needed to go win the game. 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. We put ourselves behind the 8-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. I thought we had an excellent plan on that and what we did. I think the guys bought into it. But at the end of the day, we didn't get it done. That starts with me and goes down from there. I take responsibility for not getting the guys ready. 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. We gotta figure out why that was and learn from it moving forward."

On how the offensive struggles will impact his offseason staff decisions:

"Fresh off the game so gotta evaluate it all, but early on, I felt like we had a hard time. Gabe [VanSickle] was struggling a little bit early on with his first big spot there. We were scrambling a little bit. We lost Austin [Siereveld]. They have an excellent front. I thought the guys battled and got back into a rhythm. I thought we had a good plan going in on how to get the ball out of our hands quick, but that obviously didn't work. We took five sacks. We gotta get back to it and figure out where we're going to go moving forward, but we gotta sit down and evaluate all of it."

On the injuries to OT Austin Siereveld and CB Lorenzo Styles Jr.:

"As you know, we were in this spot last year when we lost Seth [McLaughlin] and we lost [Josh] Simmons. This is part of playing this time of year. You gotta have depth, and you gotta perform in those moments. That's the bottom line. It's our job as coaches to get them ready and to do what they can. Lorenzo had a shoulder there and Austin had a leg contusion. He was in tears because he wasn't able to go back in the game. The decision was made that we weren't gonna put him back in the game when he was struggling at that point, but he would've done anything he could to get back into the game to play in this thing. He cares about his teammates and wanted to finish.

"We obviously got a team of guys that have poured a lot into this program. Some guys, this will be their last game as Buckeyes. It's going to hurt and sting. I just wanted to make sure they still know how much we appreciate everything we do and everything they've done for this program. But it hurts right now. It hurts for those guys. They put a lot of work and time into this thing. It's our job as coaches to make sure that we figure out ways to put them in a situation to be successful, so at the end of the day, it's our responsibility to do that. We've gotta take a hard look at that and figure out what it is that we gotta get done to get better."

On Styles' injury:

"He's been dealing with a shoulder all season."

On pushing the gas pedal offensively:

"I think you saw us play with a little bit of tempo today, but when you're not getting first downs early on, you gotta make sure you're getting the right plays and doing what you need to do to get first downs. I think that some of that stuff did give us a little bit of juice in the second half when we needed to. I thought that gave us an advantage at times in the game. But it wasn't done near good enough. All things that we'll make sure we look at."

On the breakdown in pass protection:

"It's hard to just say one thing. We tried to help out -- they have a very good front. We felt like it was a little bit of a different scheme than what we dealt with the week before against Indiana. Indiana was a lot of pressure, a lot of movement, a lot of twisting and things. This was a bigger group of guys who are a hard-charging front. We went in with a certain plan, and you can tell right from that first third down that we had a hard time. Being on silent, we didn't quite get off the ball on that one. That caused the first sack, and it kind of went from there.

"I do think there was a point where we got it under control. We were moving the ball pretty good. Certainly the play that [Keionte] Scott made there on the pick-six was a huge part of the game. He triggered and hit that thing, and we didn't quite execute it right in terms of what was going on on the perimeter. I think Julian's decision to throw it was the right thing to do at the time. But he made a heck of a play and that, early in the game, certainly flipped the scoreboard fast and put us in a hole. At that point, you gotta fight yourself out of it, and we weren't able to do that.

"We wanted to be aggressive. We felt like we did have an advantage downfield in the passing game. That was the give-and-take of it. Jeremiah [Smith] ended up with 157 downfield. We felt like we could do that and we were gonna be aggressive, but we also knew the give-and-take of it. That was part of what we were working through. At the end of the day, it didn't work."

On whether the change in play-callers led to the slow start:

"I gotta go look at it all and figure out what that was and what that is, because it's not good enough. Look at it all. We gotta do better. We gotta do better. That's the bottom line. Whatever it takes to get better, we'll do."

On Caleb Downs likely playing his final game at Ohio State:

"What Caleb Downs has done for Ohio State and does every day, most of it you see is on the field, but what I see is off the field. He's a special young man who has done a lot for this program. I'll forever be indebted for what he's done for us. Not only his play but what he stands for off the field, who he is. His family is tremendous. He played his tail off tonight. Nobody hurts more than he does."

On Julian Sayin's future:

"This is somebody who hasn't played a lot of football. It's his first year of playing. He competes. He works at it in the meeting room, what he does in terms of his preparation, what we put on his plate in getting us in and out of plays, protection checks. This guy here has got a very, very bright future ahead of him. I think Julian has a chance to be as good as he wants to be. Now, he's gotta learn from this. That's a big part of playing quarterback. When you look at a lot of the guys who have success at the highest levels of college football, they have a lot of games under their belt. Julian's got this season to learn from and grow from, and he's going to come back even stronger next year."