Ohio State football: Day says standout freshman ready to go vs. Terrapins

Here are five things to know from his Tuesday press conference:

1. TreVeyon Henderson is “good to go.”

Day did not offer much more detail on the running back, who suffered an unidentified injury and did not play in the second half last week as Ohio State trounced Rutgers, something Day called a coach’s decision.

For the second straight week, the Buckeyes did not need much from the play-making freshman, who has 16 carries for 164 years the last two weeks after going for 277 yards on 24 carries against Tulsa in Week 3.

Day confirmed game reps are good for a young player’s development, but minimizing wear and tear is not a bad thing, either.

“I think it’s a long year and he’s young,” Day said. “So I don’t think it’s a bad thing, but you also want to get him reps and to work.

“I think he’s also learning a lot in practice, but we have depth at that position so we’re going to use that as a strength. If we find ourselves in a situation where we’re up comfortably like that, we’re not going to be foolish and put him in a bad spot when he’s not 100% and that was just the way it was.”

2. He wants to make sure the Buckeyes do not feel like they have arrived after blowing out Rutgers.

“We’ve had one good week,” Day said. “Now we’ve got to go do it again, but there’s momentum there. If we don’t have a good week of practice, it’s not going to continue. We still have a young team. We’re still a work in progress. So we’ve got to bring it every week now.

3. Day sounded like he liked everything about what the defense did Saturday — even after allowing a big score.

“I think the aggressiveness was there,” he said. “I thought we changed up some looks. I thought that we created turnovers, and I thought we practiced well during the week and I thought the looks were accurate to what we were seeing. And I thought they carried that over to the game well, and I thought the execution was done well. Anytime you combine all those things with great effort and good tackling, you’ve got a chance to be good.”

A notable exception occurred when Aron Cruickshank took a short pass and raced 75 yards for a touchdown, but Day also liked the reaction to that one big play the Buckeyes allowed.

“We came right back the next play, blocked the extra point and it didn’t bother us,” Day said. “We didn’t have our heads down when we came to sideline. We blocked the extra point, and it’s like it didn’t even happen.”

4. He said to ignore the nature of Maryland’s last game.

The Terrapins were 4-0 heading into a big test last week at home against Iowa, and they failed miserably.

The Hawkeyes forced seven turnovers and blew Maryland out in a game that was over early.

“Another big challenge for us,” Day said. “A conference game, first conference game at home, and they’re a good team with good athleticism and a good quarterback. They’ve played some teams really tough. Last week — throw that game out and go off of what we’ve seen in the past with them because they’re dangerous.”

5. You won’t catch him scoreboard watching yet.

Thanks in large part to the relentless attention from ESPN, the College Football Playoff race tends to dominate coverage of college football from start to finish of the regular season.

Ohio State fans might already be thinking about whether or not they will need help to get into the field this year, but Day said that is not on his mind.

“I always watch and see how other teams are doing, see what’s going on in the national landscape, but it’s more important about us and how well we play because we can’t control any of that stuff,” Day said. “We can only control how much better we get, and if we continue to get better and keep growing as the season goes on, then we will be tough to beat at the end of the season.”

SATURDAY’S GAME

Maryland at Ohio State, Noon, Fox, 1410