Ohio State Buckeyes: 5 takeaways from Ryan Day’s Penn State preview press conference

1. Day is stilly trying to figure out how far behind his team is compared to a normal year.

“Yeah, I think we probably have another week to figure that out,” Day said. “I think we learned some about ourselves in the first game, but we’re at least a couple weeks behind for sure.”

The old saying goes a football team never improves more than between Week 1 and Week 2. It remains to be seen if that applies to 2020.

“Good teams really improve a lot from week one to week two, so if we can accelerate this thing this week and have a great week of practice and fix some of the things that we need to get fixed, that’ll be important in terms of the catch-up,” Day said.

2. Chris Olave’s status for Saturday has not been determined.

The junior receiver had a big day for the Buckeyes against Nebraska but left the game after taking a hard hit to the head and neck area in the second half.

If he is unable to play, Ohio State has no shortage of talented replacements, but Olave is a veteran who has shown a knack for making big plays in big games.

“We’d just move some things around just like we always do,” Day said. “That’s where depth comes into play, so we’ll see as the week goes on how it goes.”

3. Day is happy with what he saw from the freshmen receivers.

Jaxson Smith-Njigba made all the highlight shows with a toe-tapping touchdown catch late in the game, and classmate Julian Fleming also made his first catch Saturday.

They are part of a star-studded class of first-year pass catchers who have looked good so far to their head coach.

“I thought they competed, they did what typically they do in practice,” Day said. “I think the big thing for all of them is just the toughness and the physicality of playing in a Big Ten football game. Protecting and blocking and those type of things. And I thought they were in good. Ran some decent routes and for the most part caught the ball well, so it was good to start, but we still got a lot of work to do.”

4. A road game presents new challenges this week.

While Ohio State will not have to face the typical din of 110,000 fans at Beaver Stadium, this will be the first time the Buckeyes travel under new restrictions and protocols created by the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s very, very different in a lot of areas,” Day said. “We have protocols in place for how do we handle the food. Where do we come together? Where do we eat? The plane ride, the bus rides — how do we space that out.”

He credited support staff members Brian Voltilini and Quinn Temple with working on that.

"So many people here are working hard to make sure that logistics are good, but it’s our job to make sure we cover all that stuff so the players don’t have to worry about it. There are as few distractions as possible because we’ve got to go get our first road win.

“No matter what happens, it’s hard to win at Happy Valley. We’ve learned that before. So we’ll work hard to make sure that plan is organized that runs smoothly and then the other players are able to focus on the game.”

5. Ohio State is hoping to avoid the situation Wisconsin is reportedly facing.

With the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reporting Badgers starter Graham Mertz and backup Chase Wolf potentially will miss multiple games after testing positive for COVID-19, Ohio State coach Ryan Day was asked if he is managing his quarterback room differently than usual.

“We break it up,” Day said of how his quarterbacks meet and practice.

Day also has made a habit of working individually with starter Justin Fields while quarterbacks coach Corey Dennis handles the rest of the quarterbacks.

“When they’re in the quarterback meeting room with with Corey, they obviously are all masked up and distanced, and they do a great job of that,” Day said. “I’ll grab Justin and take him on my own sometimes for a lot of reasons, but that’s one of them.”

Freshman Jack Miller III relieved Fields on Saturday, but Day said classmate C.J. Stroud and senior Gunnar Hoak remain in consideration for the No. 2 quarterback spot.