Ryan Day insisted Ohio State was still trying to attack Texas after building a 20-3 lead. The numbers back him up, at least on the surface.
The Buckeyes threw it 16 times and ran it 10 times in the second half of their 24-23 loss, and they kept taking shots. The issue wasn’t a shortage of calls.
It was that the offense couldn’t finish them.
That’s where the frustration really lives in this one. Ohio State completed only five passes after halftime, averaged 4.6 yards per carry and converted just one of six third-down tries.
Day’s argument is that the Buckeyes were aggressive enough and simply failed to execute. That’s fair as far as it goes.
But the bigger problem came before the box score started to tighten: a decision on the opening drive of the second half that changed the feel of the game.
Texas had just failed on fourth down, handing Ohio State a chance in plus territory. The Buckeyes had already done what Day often talks about as winning the middle eight - the last four minutes of the second quarter and the first four minutes of the third. Julian Sayin hit Jeremiah Smith for a 19-yard touchdown 49 seconds into the second half, and Ohio State looked positioned to keep pressing.
Instead, the next possession ended with a punt from fourth-and-four.
Bo Jackson opened that drive with runs of eight and 11 yards. Smith then added 11 more on a bubble screen, Jackson chipped in three, and Texas briefly slowed things down by pressuring Sayin into throwing the ball away. After another three-yard Jackson run, Ohio State faced fourth down and chose not to keep swinging.
“When we find ourselves on third down and we don’t convert, and at that point you’re saying to yourself, ‘Alright, it’s 20-3, it’s early in the game, so we’ve gotta make a decision,’” Day said. “Do we go for it or not?
We decide to punt it, pin them inside. We get a four-and-out, then we get the ball back, push it down, and kick a field goal.
So now it’s 23-3.”
That sequence didn’t just leave points on the table. It sent a message.
Ohio State turned a chance to bury Texas into a safer, more cautious choice, and the Longhorns were allowed to hang around long enough to keep believing. The punt itself - a 26-yarder - only added to the unease around a special teams unit that has already become a sore spot, and it was later followed by another missed field goal in a key moment.
Day said the defense influenced the decision.
“I think the defense is playing excellently,” Day said. “And I felt like that was the right thing to do at the time.”
But that’s where the logic gets shaky. Texas was not exactly ripping Ohio State apart on its own.
The Longhorns were helped by dropped passes and a few strange bounces that went the Buckeyes’ way. The idea that this defense had earned enough trust to shift into a conservative posture feels like a stretch when the offense had the game’s most dangerous players and the clearest path to putting it away.
That’s the heart of the critique here: not that Ohio State stopped being aggressive, but that it chose comfort at the wrong moment. It had Texas on the ropes and opted to settle for the lead it already had instead of chasing the one that could have ended the conversation.
Day did acknowledge the need for better finishes.
“We’ve gotta get that fixed,” Day said. “We’ve gotta do a better job finishing these games.”
And that’s the lesson from this loss. Ohio State didn’t get beaten because it never tried to score. It got beaten because, when the game was there to be taken, it chose caution over pressure and never fully shook Texas loose.
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