Day Still Complaining about Not Being No. 1
Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney caught a lot of flack from the national media the last three weeks, after his defending the ACC and his Tiger football team to the media.
But where is the outrage over Ohio State head coach Ryan Day, who since the Buckeyes' win in the BIG 10 Championship has been pleading his case about why his team should be the No. 1 team.
"Really just looking at it, knowing the guys on our team, I feel like a lot of guys just have heart," Day said. "Of course, outsiders can't really see that. In my heart, I think we should be No. 1. I hope we are. I think when you look at our resume, what we've done, beating Wisconsin when they're a top-10 team twice in one year, and then again this three-game stretch was unlike I think any team has had in the country.
"Committee does a great job of ranking these teams. These are top-15 teams, top-10 teams that we played three weeks in a row. If there's anything else that shows what this team is made of, you saw it here today. The fact that we went down and played the way we did in the first half, but then to come back and play the way we did in the second half not only shows you our talent but shows you the heart of this team.
"Again, if there's a better team out there, I'd like to see them."
After the rankings came out and the Buckeyes were bumped out of the No. 1 spot for the LSU Tigers, Day shifted from complaining to why the Buckeyes should have been No. 1.
"I don’t know. I mean, yeah, do I feel like we should have been the 1 seed, but LSU has had an unbelievable season," Day said. "I think what Joe (Burrow) has done and what that team has done, they’ve done an unbelievable job. What Clemson has done, I could see that argument, as well. They’re the defending national champs, and they haven’t lost a game since and played great football.
"At the end of the day, you’ve got to beat the best to go win the National Championship, and certainly Clemson is that. What matters at the end of the year is who’s won, not right now. So we’ve got a big challenge ahead of us as we start to prepare for Clemson."
Even after the appearance of humility peaking through at the close of his statement, the complaining continued only one question later, when asked whether he felt that his team deserved to be No. 1 he returned to his ways.
"Yeah, I mean, I’m competitive, so sure," Day said.
Regardless of whether his Buckeyes were ranked first, second, third or fourth, they would still be forced to win two games over elite teams to win a championship. But if Day and his Buckeyes want to advance past the semifinal, he may want to heed his own advice and move on to the game.
"I know we’re just proud of what our guys have done," Day said. "We’ve been done everything we can up to this point, and now it’s time to go play Clemson. I think at this point you can’t look back on those kind of things and we can go back and forth about it, and I know those guys (the committee) had a hard decision to make. They made it, and we’ve got to move on.
"We can’t worry about that. Again, if we want to go win the whole thing, we have to be able to play everybody, so now we’ve got a chance to go play Clemson."
