Ryan Day: This Team Had 'IT', Hopes They Will Stick Together
"It."
Almost impossible to define ... and yet you know exactly when you see it.
Ryan Day saw it with this year's team.
The Ohio State Buckeyes aren't going to play football in 2020. The doors are closed on any fall competition, inside the Big Ten or beyond its borders. With all efforts now focused on creating a viable option for a winter/spring season, the Buckeyes are left wondering what might have been.
Coach Day got emotional addressing the media on Wednesday, because he knows how special this group is.
“As a coach, you work your whole life for the opportunity to coach a team like this,” he said, his voice catching. “This team is special. It's special because it's talented. It's special because it has leadership. It’s special because it has character. This could have been a once-in-a-lifetime team.
“Certainly, the team last year, I’ll never forget. What they did was awesome. But there was just something about this team that had ‘it.’ They had ‘it.’ They came back hungry, determined, and this quarantine, this virus, was not going to get in their way.”
The Buckeyes have 12 players that are slam dunk draft picks and perhaps 13 more that legitimately could be. While quarterback Justin Fields is most notable among them, there are several others that certainly don't need to showcase their ability any further before they turn professional.
But things are about to get awfully complicated.
According to Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer, the NFL is willing to consider altering its spring schedule with the combine and draft to accommodate a delayed college football season. College scouting has arguably never been more important. There could be players picked in the 2021 NFL draft that haven't played a competitive snap since December 2019.
How many Buckeyes would stick around for a winter/spring season remains to be seen. Ohio State fans certainly hope that many of them would consider playing, but some are reluctant to believe the 2020 team as its currently constructed will look the same in a few months.
On the other hand, Coach Day made a terrific case for why players should stick around.
“Regardless of what happens, the NFL draft isn’t gonna be till next spring. So we have everything in place here in Columbus to help those guys,” Day said. “We have the best strength coach in America (Mickey Marotti), we have all the resources here that they would need. We’re gonna test (for COVID-19) continually. We’re gonna give them meals. We’re gonna meet on football. Watch film. And just get them better physically, football-wise, football IQ, all of the above. And then if by chance they do want to go ahead and go somewhere in the spring, they still have all spring to do that.
“In a normal cycle, they wouldn’t be leaving anywhere till January anyhow. So to go somewhere right now, to me, doesn’t make a lot of sense when you have everything you need right here. And I also don’t think it’s good for them mentally to go off somewhere and just be by themselves in isolation, which is kind of what you are when you go to those places. So we’re gonna provide them everything they need to get better and get stronger, because we have those resources here at Ohio State.”
“We are still providing meals and tutors and will scale back to testing once per week, since it won’t be as high-risk of a time without us fully practicing together. On-field stuff will be more individualized for each guy or position group. We are pushing to get the pads back on. I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to because the fall is the fall, where we would be playing. It should be up to each university. We need to develop our young players and I worry about the game moving forward if we can’t. If the medical folks come in and say it isn’t safe, then it becomes a whole new story. We will continue to figure out rules and regulations.”
As of Thursday afternoon, no Ohio State players had said anything on social media that they would leave the program or opt out of the spring season. Captain Jonathon Cooper – the only Buckeye so far who’s spoken with the media since the season was canceled – told ESPN on Wednesday that he hadn't yet decided if he’ll stick around for another shot at playing his senior season.
It's been a tough week for Big Ten fans - and given the expectations for this year, perhaps most of all for Ohio State fans. Hopefully the conference will put together an action plan soon so that we can turn our attention towards something productive.
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