Ryan Day on Not Playing Maryland: "It's Very Disappointing"
Ryan Day's weekly radio show went on as scheduled, regardless of the fact that Saturday's game between Ohio State and Maryland was canceled Wednesday because of a CoVID outbreak on the Maryland team.
Frankly, keeping a regular schedule is a huge emphasis for Day. He told Paul Keels and Jim Lachey Thursday that his team is trying to stay in routine as best as possible this week.
"We practiced yesterday and we will practice again today," Day said. "We don't want to throw off our routine any more than it already has been. We'll be in pads on Saturday as we prepare for Indiana."
The Buckeyes first found out their game may be canceled around 2:00 on Wednesday, about 30 minutes prior to a scheduled 2:30 team meeting. Athletic Director Gene Smith informed Day about 10 minutes before the meeting that the game wouldn't happen and then Smith and Day addressed the team together.
"Yeah it’s very, very disappointing," Day said. "It's a hard thing to go through, but a lot of teams have had to go through this … it's hard to look your team in the face when you've done everything right and you still don't have a game to play. But to worry about things you can't control is not productive, so we are moving on to Indiana.
"The team was really disappointed, but nobody is feeling sorry for us. We just have to move on."
Day said it was very strange to go from preparing to play Maryland and have all of the coaching staff working on game plans for the Terrapins, only to suddenly stop dead in their tracks.
"I walked in the room and told the coordinators 'stop, we aren't playing Maryland, the game is canceled', and they all looked at me and said, 'okay, what now coach?'" Day said with a laugh. "So we spent most of yesterday's practice working on fundamentals and getting the second and third team guys lots of reps."
Since the Buckeyes didn't have a bye week on their schedule, Day said the only way for them to look at this now is to treat it like a bye week. They are focused on getting everyone healthy and at full strength so they can be ready for a huge game against Indiana on Saturday, November 21.
"We talk about it every day, we have to stay alert with this virus," Day said. "This is the first time we’ve been strongly affected by this thing … its discouraging, can’t act like it isn’t, it is … but we are moving on to Indiana."
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