Tim May: How Buckeyes can use win over Notre Dame as springboard for rest of season
COLUMBUS — No one, certainly not Ryan Day, is saying Ohio State played anything close to a perfect game in the rousing, touchdown-with-a-second-left, 17-14 victory at Notre Dame two weeks ago.
But an off-shoot of the way that game went down in the late minutes — the defense getting the ball back for the offense, then the offense led by quarterback Kyle McCord driving 65 yards in 1:25 to gain the winning touchdown on a one-yard plunge by Chip Trayanum — could be the coalescing of a team.
Joey Bosa felt it in the moments after his shove sack of Christian Hackenberg ensured the Buckeyes’ two-overtime win at Penn State in 2014, Ohio State going on to win the national championship in the first College Football Playoff. The season was on the brink, then it wasn’t. The team found a way.
“I think we learned that we are a real team, and that when adversity strikes we can come together in a big game, a crazy environment, 110,000 people,” Bosa said that night. “Just because we won in the second overtime doesn’t make it a small win.
“This was a huge win, we should have played a lot better, and we will.”
Such was the refrain from the current Buckeyes in the aftermath of that win at Notre Dame, in front of a frenzied near 80,000 fans in the stadium and millions more watching on television. For example, there was McCord’s take on the offense, which squandered a couple of opportunities that would have made the evening much less stressful.
“To go up and win a game like that in the fashion we did obviously was great, and I think that confidence is huge,” McCord said on The Tim May Show this week. “But going back and watching the film, man, we could have had so many more points, which is exciting.
“Obviously it’s a lot better to go back and watch that film being on the winning side of things, but knowing that we really haven’t even scratched the surface yet with what this offense can do, it’s exciting. Sometimes it’s frustrating, when we get all the way down to the one-yard line and we don’t score [which happened early that night], the second-to-last drive; getting all the way down there and not scoring [when a fourth-and-1 jet sweep fizzled].
“But like I said, it’s exciting knowing we were able to put together a ‘two-minute’ drive like that and win a game like that, still knowing we left some money out there on the field.”
The challenge now is for the Buckeyes to pick up where they left off almost two weeks ago, an off-week in between separating them from Saturday’s homecoming game vs. 5-0 Maryland at noon. The performance against the Terps and henceforth will determine whether Ohio State indeed took a major step up in becoming that team it seeks to be, in much the same way the 2014 squad did.
Day was asked whether he’d noticed something different about his team since that win at Notre Dame.
“I think so, I do, but that’s going to show itself on Saturday against Maryland,” Day said this week. “But yeah, I think coming off that field, I do – that’s why it’s kind of (a mixed blessing having an off week right after such a huge win), it’s good to get some rest but kind of want to keep that momentum going.
“But yeah, I think a lot of guys gained a lot of confidence coming out of that game.”
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