‘Disturbed’ Day fires back at Holtz after Buckeyes win

• Adam Rittenberg, ESPN Senior WriterSep 23, 2023, 11:52 PM ET

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  • College football reporter.
  • Signed up with ESPN.com in 2008.
  • Graduate of Northwestern University.SOUTH BEND, Ind.–

Minutes after Ohio State players strolled toward their tunnel bring an”Ohio Against The World “flag, coach Ryan Day approached and emphatically pumped his fist towards the fans.Day’s emotions had actually risen all week, fueled by remarks from former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz that Ohio State loses big games since the team isn’t physical enough. Holtz told “The Pat McAfee Program”on Friday that”Notre Dame will take that very same approach “to hand Day another big-stage defeat.Instead, the sixth-ranked Buckeyes dominated 17-14 versus No. 9 Notre Dame and did so in a way that Day

couldn’t have scripted any much better. Ohio State drove the field and scored with one 2nd left on a 1-yard Chip Trayanum touchdown run, validated following a replay review.”I’m really upset … about what Lou Holtz said publicly about our group and Ohio State and Buckeye Country,”Day stated of Holtz, who was

bestowed Notre Dame’s 1988 national championship team during Saturday’s game.” We’re not going to stand for that. That’s not even close to real. We had one bad half a number of years ago up in Ann Arbor, the 2nd half. Every game we play in, we’re physical, we are.”I do not know where that narrative comes from, but that ends tonight.”Holtz pointed out Ohio State’s successive losses to archrival Michigan and its College Football Playoff

losses to Georgia, Alabama and Clemson as examples of a group that did not have grit. The 86-year-old’s comments and comparable ones from others appeared on videoboards around Ohio State’s football structure leading up to the Notre Dame game.Until the last drive, Ohio State likely would not have silenced its critics. The Buckeyes squandered a 10-0 lead and struggled in short-yardage scenarios, consisting of being stopped on an end around at Notre Dame’s 11-yard line with 4:11 to play.Editor’s Picks 2 Related However Ohio State profited from its last ownership, converting on third-and-10, fourth-and-7 and third-and-19. After an incomplete pass, Ohio State had a final play on Notre Dame’s 1-yard line and went to Trayanum.

Notre Dame had only 10 protectors on the field for the play.”I made the call,”Day said. “There were three seconds left, so I’m thinking that’s the last play anyways. … Not just do we need to get that yard for this program, however it was the best thing to do schematically.”Day said he thinks the late return will be remembered as one of the greatest wins in team history. Trayanum, an Arizona State transfer who at first came to Ohio State to play linebacker, believed he extended the ball throughout the goal line.According to ESPN Stats & Information, Trayanum’s touchdown marked the current from skirmish in a regular-season AP top-10 matchup because Michael Crabtree’s catch for Texas Tech in 2008 against Texas. “As a running back, you live for runs like that,”Trayanum stated.” The nitty-gritty runs, the runs where you’re battling with your body to stay up and making certain absolutely nothing touched. You picture that as a running back. This sensation, it’s still surreal, but it’s certainly a great Buckeye win.” Although Holtz’s remarks struck a nerve with Day, the Buckeyes coach had heard similar criticism for a while following the team’s prominent losses. He raised Ohio State’s 21-10 season-opening win against Notre Dame in 2022– “We physically got after them”– and said the group’s critics simply don’t enjoy film. “We constantly say,’Ignore the noise,’but every once in a while, after a while somebody’s poking at you, you have actually got to stand up for what you believe in,” Day stated. “That’s the method I was raised, which’s the method I’m going to be moving on. I got a lot of guys in there that I love, that I work with every day. To see a few of the important things that were said, I get Ohio against the world, but we needed to go play like that today.”We required to win like that, to stop that story that’s going on, because it’s not true.”Buckeyes quarterback Kyle McCord had actually also dealt with criticism, from taking longer than anticipated to win the beginning job to struggling at times throughout a season-opening win against Indiana. McCord had a choppy very first half Saturday night and had a hard time to find leading wide receiver Marvin Harrison Jr., who briefly left the game with an ankle injury and walked slowly to the

tunnel afterward.But McCord came alive on the final drive, twice discovering Emeka Egbuka for long gains and striking Julian Fleming to convert the fourth-and-7. He ended up with 240 passing lawns and no goals or interceptions.”Down four points with an opportunity to go win it there in the end, a historic arena, a terrific environment versus an excellent defense, you can’t draw it up any better than that,”McCord said.” To come away with a win, it wasn’t ideal, however it feels really, actually excellent.”McCord stated Notre

Dame (4-1)played “soft “zone defense on the third-and-19 play, and Egbuka found an open area, simply short of the objective line. “We believed we were going to have the ability to give them a different appearance and

play some [Cover 4] and he threw an excellent ball, male,”Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman stated.”That last series we were attempting to kind of mix it up a little bit with a young quarterback and not just play guy every play. And he ended up putting it in

a tight window. “Ohio State( 4-0)improved to 6-2 perpetuity versus Notre Dame, the second-best record for a Battling Irish challenger with

a minimum of four games, routing just the University of Chicago.”There’s no doubt I am psychological,”Day said. “Due to the fact that in life, when people begin talking and saying features of you, eventually you have actually got to put your foot in the ground. Our group did that.”