Ryan Day's decisions continue to cost Ohio State: Late-game calls lead to collapse again in loss to Texas CBS Sports No. 1 Ohio State sees 20-point lead evaporate in 4th quarter ESPN Arch Manning and Texas made history w...
AUSTIN, Texas - Stuffed into a small room in the bowels of Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium on Saturday, dozens of reporters listened as Ohio State coach Ryan Day attempted to explain the almost unimaginable: How the No. 1 team in the country blew a 20-point fourth-quarter lead in a 24-23 loss to No. 4 Texas .
"I can't really sit here and tell you exactly why that happened," Day said. "We all have to take accountability, and we have to get this thing fixed.
As Day spoke, a "Texas Fight" chant broke out on the other side of the door as Longhorns fans jubilantly departed the stadium after one of Texas' biggest victories in years.
Teams were 0-223 against AP No. 1 teams since 2003 when trailing by 17-plus points before Saturday. Texas, with three straight-fourth quarter touchdown drives and three straight fourth-quarter stops, secured the unlikeliest of wins.
It's a potential launch pad for a Texas team seeking its first national title since 2005.
For Ohio State, losers of three of its last four dating back to the 2025 campaign, it's another confounding loss in a game that slipped away.
He's 83-13 as Ohio State's coach. But of those 13 losses, six of them involved the Buckeyes squandering a second-half lead.
As weird as it is to say a national championship coach has a troubled history of closing games out - Day does. Even the 2024 national title provided a scare. The Buckeyes were up 31-7 in the third quarter and had to endure a 15-point barrage from Notre Dame before putting the game away.
Consider this: Since Day's first full season as a head coach in 2019, the Buckeyes have played in 14 games decided by seven points or fewer.
For all of Day's success, his teams have developed a troubling tendency to get conservative when games tighten, especially against elite competition. You could point to the amount of drop-eight coverage the Buckeyes played, which Texas picked apart in the fourth quarter after Arch Manning struggled against it early. There was a punt on 4th-and-5 from Texas' 39 yard line while up 20-3 that netted Ohio State all of 26 yards.
More than anything, however, it's Day's decision to not let Texas score.
The Longhorns reached the one-yard-line with 1:23 remaining on an Arch Manning strike to Emmett Mosley. Ohio State had just one timeout left. Instead of letting Texas cross the goal line and go ahead by one and leave time remaining for a comeback, Day, with a defense that had been on the field in 90-plus degree weather for basically an entire half and was getting picked apart in the run game, opted to play straight up defense.
Ohio State had just 25 seconds on the clock and no timeouts to attempt a comeback.
After Texas scored, Manning told Mosley it was better he came up short of the end zone in that situation.
Asked about the decision not to let Texas score, Day said he considered it but wanted to play defense for two plays and go for the win.
Reporting synthesized and verified under Nexvoro.tech editorial guidelines. Full primary records referenced via Google News US Sports.
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