Ohio State coach Ryan Day lamented all of the self-inflicted errors the Buckeyes made on offense of their 28-14 victory towards Texas within the College Football Playoff semifinals, saying Sunday that his workforce has to play higher within the nationwide championship recreation towards Notre Dame on Jan. 20.
Day mentioned the Buckeyes’ offense allowed 5 drives to get away from them with penalties and a turnover in Friday’s semifinal.
Two of these have been 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalties, together with one on working again TreVeyon Henderson that ended up forcing the Buckeyes to punt on their second drive of the sport.
“There’s no person that got here again on offense and was happy with the truth that we had these penalties,” Day mentioned throughout a Zoom information convention Sunday. “The points are there. We definitely have the best and alternative to persevere via these penalties, however definitely units us manner behind the sticks, and we can’t have that on this recreation. Efficiency goes to be one thing that we have to do a significantly better job of if we will win it.”
Day mentioned Henderson felt dangerous about his penalty, which got here after he made helmet-to-helmet contact with a Texas defender.
“He is aware of that he is obtained to play with emotion,” Day mentioned of Henderson. “He cannot let emotion play with him.”
Day was additionally requested about star freshman huge receiver Jeremiah Smith, who was held to 1 catch for 3 yards towards Texas — his lowest output of the season. It got here as a shock contemplating how a lot Smith dominated the primary two playoff video games with 13 mixed catches for 290 yards towards Tennessee and Oregon. Day mentioned Texas didn’t play Smith any in a different way and once more pointed to the missed alternatives on offense.
“It’s just a little bit extra about execution than it’s anything,” Day mentioned. “We weren’t capable of maintain a number of of these drives and join on a pair different performs. [Smith is] clearly an enormous a part of our offense, so there’s totally different ways in which groups will regulate primarily based on what he is executed and what he is able to. We’ll determine what these are on this recreation after which go from there.
“But to me, the story of this previous recreation was the self-inflicted wounds that set us again and allowed us to be within the recreation within the fourth quarter, once we may have executed a greater job executing and made it just a little little bit of an even bigger unfold down the stretch. That’s going to be the main focus this week. We’ve obtained to play our greatest recreation towards Notre Dame.”
Day mentioned beginning cornerback Denzel Burke, who sat out the second half towards Texas with an higher extremity damage, might be able to play towards the Irish.
