Ohio State coach Ryan Day has found the right mix to get his team off to a 5-0 start, perhaps because he's an interesting mix himself.
The 40-year-old Day is young enough to have a fresh perspective on coaching, but his favorite buzzword, toughness, speaks to a throwback mentality he insists his team display every day.
The No. 4 Buckeyes haven't allowed any of their last four opponents within 40 points, but face their stiffest challenge Saturday night in No. 25 Michigan State (7:30 p.m., Ohio Stadium, ABC-TV).
Ohio State wasted no time disposing of Nebraska
Nebraska was supposed to pose a departure from the frolics that have characterized OSU's season so far, but the Buckeyes steamrolled their way to a 38-0 halftime lead and a 48-67 win in the face of the distractions of ESPN GameDay and a charged road environment.
"I believe that if you’re going to play hard and play tough on Saturday, it doesn’t just happen magically," Day said. "You can’t just give the team a really good speech and get them all fired up to play the game. It comes back to their training.
"I’m not the only coach in America (who thinks that way). That’s not new news to anybody, but it’s something we talk about every week, and we’ll do a team meeting today and we’ll talk about how important practice is, and if we train really hard, we train really tough, we practice that way, then that’s how we’re going to play."
Dantonio has a message that's proven successful at MSU
Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio has an easy card to play with his Spartans, given that several key players are Ohio natives who OSU did not recruit.
Dantonio pounds that message each year, and it's worked for him in upsets of Ohio State in the 2013 Big Ten title game and in 2015 in Columbus.
"The nice thing about football is every single week you've got to prove it on the field and you've got an opportunity," Dantonio said. "It's 0-0 when you start. So that's where we start. We start 0-0."
The Buckeyes have so far been immune from the lackadaisical starts that plagued them last season, including in their 26-6 win at Michigan State, which entered the fourth quarter a 9-6 struggle.
Buckeyes' emotional temperature evident prior to kickoff
Day said he felt good about his team's mindset when he gauged it during the day on Saturday, prior to kickoff in Lincoln.
"You get a vibe during the week for sure with the way they practice, but there’s definitely a feel the day of," he said. "It’s hard for a night game because you don’t just want to wake up and have them start running through walls for you because the game is not until that night.
"You can usually tell if it’s a noon kickoff if they wake up with energy and juice, they’ve got a good look in their eye, they’re probably fresh and ready to roll. A little bit harder on a night game. But again, it goes back to if they practice hard during the week, they’re going to play well.”
Day, staff hope to consistency to players' commitment
He and his coaching staff emphasize that message every day, being mindful the same message can eventually lose its impact.
"That’s another art of coaching this generation is that I talk about we have to be tough," Day said. "To your point, maybe they get tired of hearing it (but) they can’t get tired of hearing it because that’s what’s got us to this point, and we’re building that toughness.
"But toughness isn’t just on the field, it’s all these other things that are going to come in. It’s sustaining. That’s what toughness is. Can you sustain it throughout a season, then you are tough. If you can’t, then you aren’t as tough as you thought you were."
