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Vo. 1, No. 7
Hello and welcome back to another edition of Cus Words Sports!
This week in Ohio State football, the themes are efficiency and complacency.
Ryan Day wants to see one and very much wants to avoid the other.
I already wrote a story about the former for Press Pros Magazine (and an accompanying newsletter), so let’s look closer at the latter.
Not that Day is the first coach of a top-ranked team to have such concerns, of course, but he spelled out clearly that is on his mind despite the fact their opponent this week is ranked 17th.
Even better: This also gave me the chance to draw a comparison to something Woody Hayes was fond of saying, a quote I first heard from my high school football coach that has stuck with me ever since.
It was a quote of a quote, actually, as Woody liked to cite Ralph Waldo Emerson on any number of occasions, but in this case I was also able to locate it in a Sports Illustrated story from November 1968 that recorded it for posterity:
Those who think that this phase of Woody Hayes has passed, that he is turning sophomore quarterbacks loose while pastorally sniffing life's flowers, just don't know their man. They might understandably be deceived by his always turning to the bracing words of Emerson, reaching for his dog-eared paperback of the Essays so that he can read aloud from dozens of passages he has underlined.
"'Blame is safer than praise,' " he recently quoth.
No, that’s not it, but we’re getting closer.
"And that's what I tell the boys all the time, that this niceness from people complimenting you can be what kills you. It can be deceiving.
“Yes sir, Emerson was hitting the ball square when he said, 'As soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me I feel as one who lies unprotected before his enemies.' "
Oh yeah, that's the stuff!
Day will never be confused for Woody for multiple reasons, but he spoke about the need to block out the noise both times he met with reporters this week.
(While Woody might have mellowed… a little… over the years, Day seems to be hardening.)
The Buckeyes are No. 1 in the land, but they can’t rest on their ranking because they haven’t accomplished anything yet, their coach said.
Ryan Day’s version of the Saban rat poison speech?
— #Marcus Hartman (#@marcushartman)
4:23 PM • Oct 7, 2025
Is that profound? No, not really, but I think it might represent his further evolution as a coach. He’s worried about individual areas of the team, but he’s got his eye on the big picture as well.
And, by the way, he’s right. These Buckeyes have not accomplished anything yet, but I get the impression they are aware of it.
I tweeted at the end of the Texas game that Ohio State had just locked up a spot in the College Football Playoff, and I was only partly joking.
If they go on to beat everyone they should beat, they will be in the top 12 at the end of the season. They could afford a couple of losses with a win over the Longhorns under their belt, or so it seemed at the time.
With Texas dropping out of the top 25 this week, that no longer looks like such an accomplishment, but that’s a story for another time…
No. 1 Ohio State's new-look defense remains dominant ahead of matchup at No. 17 Illinois buff.ly/cSv78hE
— #Marcus Hartman (#@marcushartman)
5:34 PM • Oct 9, 2025
What might Day want to see the Buckeyes improve this week?
The coach mentioned starting faster on offense, and he called the running game “solid.”
“I think there's always areas for improvement. I think we're targeted in what we're doing. I think the guys are playing physical up front, and I think the running backs, every time they get a carry are learning, getting better. You're seeing yards after contact improve last week, which is an area emphasis.
“So I think it's improving, and we know how important that's going to be, especially on a road and environment like this.”
Here’s one other thing that caught my ear:
“I think you're seeing guys like Max (Klare) and our running backs really starting to take strides forward now to make an impact. And we just want to make sure when we go into a game that, based on what the defense is giving us, that we can attack them in that area. When you lose that balance, that's when you put yourself at risk.”
Yes, yes, yes!
I liked that a lot because it seems more than ever like a key to success in big-time football.
No matter how much you want to establish the run, you just might not be able to if the defense is still trying to take it away.
No matter how much you want to attack down the field with your extremely talented receivers, you can’t do it if the defense is determined to keep a couple of guys deeper than the deepest.
But once you figure out which of those things they’re doing — and sometimes in past years Ohio State coaches have lamented they were still being defended like a great running team even if they hadn’t shown they could be — the key is how you react.
Actually, it’s how you CAN react.
The Bengals probably present a more obvious example. Teams are going to protect against the deep ball and give them some yards on the ground (at least when Joe Burrow is healthy), but they aren’t capable of taking advantage with regularity so they just end up spinning their wheels until Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase or Tee Higgins do something incredible on their own.
Ohio State ran into this in the playoffs last year against Texas.
The Longhorns had the defensive braintrust and the athletic talent to contain the Ohio State passing game, but they left themselves vulnerable up front. Unfortunately for the Buckeyes, they couldn’t block the Texas front well enough to take advantage, so they were at a stalemate most of the night.
That is something Day doesn’t want to see happen again, but there is still work to do.
But what about Illinois?
Bret Bielema teams traditionally have been built on running the ball and playing stout defense, but this team doesn’t do either of those things well.
They go as the passing game goes, which isn’t a terrible thing when you have a solid senior quarterback in Luke Altmyer and productive all-around receiver in Hank Beatty.
Bottom line: Illinois is 25th nationally in scoring but just 72nd in points allowed.
In fact, the defense has been pretty bad overall while the offense has kept them in games. The Illini gave up at least 450 yards three games in a row but they also have gained more than 500 yards the last two games.
Altmyer is seventh in the nation in completion percentage, fifth in passing efficiency and sixth in passing yards. He’s also second in pass yards per attempt at 10.63, so this will be strength on strength against the Ohio State secondary.
Illinois is tied for seventh in the country with 13 passes of at least 30 yards (one more than Ohio State), and they are 14th in turnover margin.
Sometimes traditional numbers don’t tell the whole story, but in this case they seem to do the trick: The Illinois defense is quite bad in traditional stats and also many advanced stats.
According to CollegeFootballData.com, the Fighting Illinare 128th in DB havoc rate (meaning they don’t break up passes or get interceptions or get tackles for loss from the secondary) and 83rd in front seven havoc rate (same thing but from DL and LBs) despite having some sacks.
Illinois is 88th in defensive line yards, 86th power rate (short yardage) and 80th in rushing success rate, so there should be some yards to gain on the ground for the Buckeyes.
And through the air?
The Illini are 133rd in passing plays success rate but 43rd in pass plays explosiveness, so they look like another bend/don’t break defense.
Does that mean that is how they will defend Ohio State? No, it doesn’t, but it’s something to keep in mind.
Washington (with the former Illinois DC) typically plays a lot of man coverage but flipped the script against Ohio State, and the opposite was true with Minnesota.
Bielema is a cagey old coach at this point, so I wouldn’t expect him to invite death by 1,000 cuts, but we’ll find out a little after noon on Saturday.
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