COLUMBUS – Ryan Day showed he won’t hesitate to make bold in-season coaching changes if something isn’t working when he essentially demoted defensive coordinator Kerry Coombs during the 2021 season by taking away his play calling duties.
Despite some difficulties in the Buckeyes’ special teams unit this season, Day says there are no plans to have anyone other than special teams coordinator Parker Fleming lead that group.
“I watch Parker every day and see the way he coaches and I think he’s a great teacher and a great coach. He works as hard as anybody in the building. We’ll just keep pushing to make it better,” Day said at his weekly press conference on Tuesday.
“I’m there every day, I’m watching how things are taught. If I felt there was something not being taught right or done right then I certainly would intercede. But I’m in those meetings, I see what goes on. We just need to do a better job. But, like anything, we will continue to evaluate it and make sure we’re doing what is best for the players,” he said.
OSU’s special teams have been under an unwanted spotlight since punter Jesse Mirco was stopped well short of a first down when he ran what appeared to be a fake punt when no call for a fake punt had been made during last Saturday’s 35-16 win over Rutgers.
Earlier this season, there was a bad snap on a punt against Maryland and a turnover when a punt hit Lorenzo Styles Jr. as he ran down the field in coverage, which allowed Penn State to recover the football. And there were a couple of lesser issues, like a missed extra point and a 35-yard punt return by Wisconsin’s Chimere Dike.
Fleming is in his third season as Ohio State’s special teams coordinator.
Some other thoughts from Day:
• Finishing drives big: Ohio State scored on its second drive against Rutgers then did not score on its next five drives. It had one offensive touchdown in the first 42 minutes of the game.
Obviously, Day wants to see OSU’s offense finish more drives with touchdowns.
“I felt like there were some good individual performances when you put the film of Saturday on. But you still want to see more overall drives finished. The encouraging thing is we had more guys grade out (well). That was good. We just didn’t complete enough drives,” he said.
“There are signs we are moving in the right direction but it’s getting late in the season and our urgency is at an all time high.”
• McCord almost a champion: Day liked a lot of the things quarterback Kyle McCord did against Rutgers but one play kept OSU’s junior quarterback from grading out as a champion.
“If it wasn’t for the interception he would have graded out as a champion. I thought overall he graded out well. I think there was progress made,” Day said.
“He started off well with a bunch of completions in a row. That was good. There was some real good there. We had more efficiency in the pass game.”
• Mathews a competitor: Freshman Jermaine Mathews got his first college start last Saturday when No. 1 cornerback Denzel Burke did not play against Rutgers. He also played more than half the snaps against Penn State when Burke’s injury problems first surfaced.
Day was asked Tuesday why Mathews made the transition to college from high school so quickly. He started with competitiveness when he discussed Mathews’ attributes.
“When we recruited Jermaine we felt like this was a very competitive player. He was at our camp. It was a really hot day and he just kept going and going. At the time we hadn’t offered him and he was just fighting for a scholarship. He was hungry.
“Once he got here we saw the same thing. Once the competition started he was at his best. You just never know until you get them in those situations. But it seems like the bigger the stage the more he likes it. He is nowhere near a finished product but the competitiveness and physicality are there,” Day said.
• Injury updates: Tight end Cade Stover and Burke were held out of last week’s game, safety Lathan Ransom has missed two games because of an injury and linebacker Tommy Eichenberg and safety Josh Proctor left last week’s game because of injuries.
Day had something to say about the situations of all of them heading into Saturday night’s game against Michigan State.
On Stover, he said, “Hopefully he will have a full week of practice and be available this week. He was available last week but a week of not playing certainly allows him to heal more. He’ll be getting close to 100 percent soon.”
He thinks Burke might also be close to returning but Ransom will probably be out longer. “We’re expecting Denzel to have a pretty good week of work (in practice). With Lathan we’re going to kind of identify where he is at, maybe later in the week,” he said.
On Proctor, he said, “I think he’s going to be ready to roll. We’ll keep looking at it.”
He was less emphatic about Eichenberg’s return from an arm injury than defensive coordinator Jim Knowles was when he talked about the senior linebacker.
Day said, “I expect to see him out there today (at practice) and we’ll see how the week goes.”
Knowles said, “I’m not concerned about Tom. Tom would play with one arm if he had to. The trainers will make the decision for him. If we let him play, he’ll play.”
Reach Jim Naveau at 567-242-0414.
