{"id":83808,"date":"2025-02-20T18:17:03","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T00:17:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/ryan-day-knew-ohio-state-would-win-national-championship-after-jack-sawyer-touchdown-vs-texas\/"},"modified":"2025-02-20T18:17:03","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T00:17:03","slug":"ryan-day-knew-ohio-state-would-win-national-championship-after-jack-sawyer-touchdown-vs-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/ryan-day-knew-ohio-state-would-win-national-championship-after-jack-sawyer-touchdown-vs-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Day knew Ohio State would win national championship after Jack Sawyer touchdown vs. Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ohio State<\/a><\/strong>\u2018s national championship victory is setting in for Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day.<\/p>\n

Having had some time to soak it in, Day joined The Triple Option Podcast<\/em> to discuss the victory with fellow Ohio State national championship-winning head coach Urban Meyer, alongside former Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram and Fox Sports host Rob Stone. <\/p>\n

Meyer asked Day to reveal the exact moment he knew he was going to win the national championship. Surprisingly, it was Jack Sawyer<\/a><\/strong>\u2018s fumble recovery touchdown against Texas in the Cotton Bowl.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat ball hadn\u2019t bounced that way in previous games in those moments for us,\u201d Day told Meyer<\/a>, along with the rest of the crew. \u201cAnd when it bounced right up into him and he started running, it wasn\u2019t then. It was when I looked back to make sure there were no flags on the ground, and I said, \u2018You know what? I think we\u2019re gonna win the national championship.’\u201d<\/p>\n

While the touchdown play by Sawyer helped give Day assurance that his team would win it all \u2014 that was in the national semifinal. Once the Buckeyes went on to jump out to a 31-7 lead over Notre Dame<\/a><\/strong> in the national championship game, Day had another one of these moments because at this point all his team needed to do was get first downs and run out the clock. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe called a reverse to Emeka [Egbuka]<\/a><\/strong> \u2014 and I mean, Emeka is one of my favorite players of all time,\u201d Day said. \u201cAnd I just said that no matter what, you come back with that ball and you hand the ball to the official. Somehow, the ball got punched out. And I said to myself, \u2018Oh my gosh. Now this thing\u2019s in the balance.\u2019 And then now, it\u2019s panic mode. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe call the shot to Jeremiah [Smith]<\/a><\/strong>. He catches it. But it wasn\u2019t then. It wasn\u2019t even after we kicked the field goal. It was when they ran that first down play, and the clock kept running. I finally just took the headset off.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, it marks the first national championship as a head coach for Ryan Day, who has been the subject of criticism this season for losing arguably its two biggest games of the regular season. Ultimately, they were left out of the Big Ten Championship game but were able to turn their fortunes around in the playoffs. Now, they\u2019re national champions.<\/p>\n

As the offseason gets into full swing, the Buckeyes can rest assured knowing that they now sit atop the college football mountaintop for the ninth time in program history and Ohio State\u2019s first since the College Football Playoffs\u2019 inception in 2014. <\/p>\n\n

The post Ryan Day knew Ohio State would win national championship after Jack Sawyer touchdown vs. Texas<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ohio State\u2018s national championship victory is setting in for Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day. Having…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}