Now that Ohio State has beaten Rutgers 42-9, the postseason has begun

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The Ohio State Buckeyes are the reigning national champions. They are undefeated through 11 games in their title defense. They have been the No. 1 team in college football since Week 2 of the season. And yet, they enter Rivalry Week with something to prove.

Ryan Day’s Buckeyes have not beaten their rival Michigan Wolverines since 2019. After Jim Harbaugh declined to have his team play in 2020, citing concerns about COVID-19, That Team Up North’s former coach and his replacement, Sherrone Moore, have rattled off four straight wins in The Game.

That fact has tormented the Ohio State players and their head coach for years.

Now that the Buckeyes have wrapped up an ugly and uneven 42-9 victory over Rutgers in Week 13, a traditional look at the football calendar might tell you that there is one week remaining in the regular season, but that would be wrong, at least when it comes to Ohio State.

For the Scarlet and Gray, the postseason has to start right away, and Day and company seem to recognize that. While the injuries to wide receivers Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate have put an existential cloud over what has otherwise been a remarkably smooth and stress-free season, OSU simply has to win next week, regardless of who does and does not suit up.

I think that we are well past making sweeping generalizations about the tenor of Day’s tenure based on one game, but despite the national title, there are still some who question the coach’s ability to mentally handle the specific stresses of the greatest rivalry in all of sports. Right or wrong, Day recognizes that there is still a substantial asterisk on his otherwise stellar resume that can only be erased by winning The Game.

To that end, the Buckeye coaching staff has made tweaks to its plan all year long in ways large and small to be ready to win in Ann Arbor next Saturday.

As they did last year, the team has gone at a methodically slow pace on offense in order to minimize the number of snaps that the players’ bodies go through. And while that was clearly done with an eye on mitigating the cumulative impacts of a physical season, I am convinced that the strategy has more to do with Michigan than the College Football Playoff.

Regardless of when you play your first CFP game, there is a not-insignificant amount of time to rest and recover between games. For teams in their respective conference championship games, it could be from two to nearly four weeks off, and for teams that don’t play for their conference titles, it could be almost three full weeks. Theoretically, anything short of a season-ending injury should have plenty of time to at least improve, if not heal up completely.

However, there is no built-in break before Rivalry Week. So OSU’s throttling back seems like it will have an even more dramatic impact on The Game than it would on the playoffs. So, in that respect, Nov. 29 is the start of the postseason for Ohio State.

But it’s not just on-field things that Day has changed to recalibrate the approach to TTUN. Instead of bringing the Ohio State Marching Band to practice during Michigan Week, TBDBITL visited the Woody Hayes Athletic Center during the football team’s second off week this season. With the changing of that tradition and the moving of the Senior Tackle, Day has slowly morphed Hate Week from a unique, event-filled celebration to a more focused, business-like operation. And given the lack of success the team has had this decade against its rival, I think these types of adjustments are likely overdue.

There are very few things that you can ding Ryan Day for during his tenure in Columbus aside from his record against Michigan. Despite all of the wins, all of the accolades, all of the NFL Draft picks, and the national title, the specter of the Wolverines has haunted the Buckeye head coach at every turn over the past five years.

No matter how successful Day’s teams have been since the pandemic, TTUN has been there to dampen the celebrations; the Maize and Blue have been there to force fans to second-guess the leadership and direction of the program, and that has clearly taken its toll on Day.

You’ve seen it in his demeanor during the final week of past regular seasons, you’ve seen it in the way that he has completely changed his coaching philosophy in The Game, you’ve seen it in the way that he has hyperfixated on proving that his team is tough when he has built his entire roster and program around being skilled.

Since the player-led meeting following last year’s loss to Michigan, Day has been the best version of himself; more concentrated on what his team does best, more in tune with how to motivate his players, more focused on maximizing the potential of the best roster in college football.

We have seen over the years that Day has been able to tap into another level of creativity and aggression in the playoffs, so it would seemingly behoove the Buckeyes if their head coach were able to recalibrate the schedule in order to start the team’s postseason preparation during Rivalry Week.

What Day and the Buckeyes have done against Michigan over the last four seasons clearly hasn’t worked. While there will always be pressure on players from both sides in this game, it seems that this version of Ohio State’s coaching staff produces better when the pressure is of a postseason variety, rather than that of a rivalry. So, when a win in The Game gets you into the Big Ten Championship Game, it only makes sense to treat next week’s trip to Ann Arbor as the first game of what will hopefully be a five-game postseason run.

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