COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Head coach Ryan Day overruled offensive coordinator Ryan Day on Saturday as Ohio State’s first-year coach was welcomed into the world of doing what you have to do to win instead of what you want to do to win.

He ran it on 73 percent of the snaps, including asking quarterback Justin Fields for a season-high 21 carries. He leaned on his defense. He punted. He called a game that would have made Jim Tressel or Urban Meyer proud, and a game that, for the first time in his tenure as the boss of the Buckeyes, made some fans crazy. The new guy with the 14-0 record as a head coach, known for his innovation and aggression, buttoned it up on a wet day against a tough foe and took a 28-17 win however he could get it.

“It’s not easy to do for an offensive guy,” Day said of the victory over No. 8 Penn State when I asked him the thing that everyone was asking me after the game, which was why he was so conservative in the second half. Day the head coach gave most of the answer and then paused, and it seemed like he let the offensive coordinator add that part, and add this part.

“And punting the ball, I thought, at one point was not easy either,” Day said.

But the coach? The coach said this about running it 17 times and throwing it four times in the final 19 minutes while nursing a four-point lead that expanded to an 11-point lead on one of those throws, a 28-yard touchdown from Fields to Chris Olave. He had a team that had turned it over on three costly fumbles to keep the Nittany Lions in the game; an offensive line that was allowing more pressure than he liked; a defense led by Chase Young that was attacking a Penn State offense that wasn’t very dynamic; and a game that felt like it could get a little loose if he let it.

“It’s everything you said,” Day said. "It was a little hectic. We’re kind of turning the ball over. Our defense was playing strong. I talked to the guys, listen, we’re still going to try to be aggressive, but we need to get some first downs and eat up some clock here. And that’s what we’re doing. We’re typically, in a moment like that, if it was a back-and-forth game and we had a little bit more rhythm in the game, we’d be throwing the ball more down the field and being more aggressive.

“But I just felt like defense was playing strong. Let’s just kind of eat some clock up and try to shorten the game.”

What really got to him, what he said wasn’t easy, was a punt on fourth-and-2 from basically midfield. The Buckeyes had thrown one safe pass and run it four times on the drive, and now they were ready to punt it away up 21-17 and give the Nittany Lions a chance to drive for the lead. I felt like Meyer, who at times could enter an “aggression or bust” mindset, would have gone for it. But this is where Day turned Tressel and Drue Chrisman punted the Nittany Lions back to their 11-yard line, where their drive went nowhere and Ohio State got it right back.

Right call.

This was a Tressel game through and through, the type we saw so many Saturdays during his 10 years in charge. You never exactly felt like the Buckeyes were going to lose, but it also never felt like the Buckeyes were asserting themselves. The stats favored Ohio State more than the scoreboard, and the result was some frustration for fans in a win over a top-10 team. I joked that 28-17 had to have been the average score of Tressel’s games against the Nittany Lions. Then I checked.

He went 7-3 against them. The average score of the seven wins was 26-12.

So the strategy was Tressel, but the execution was Meyer, all power run with a devastating quarterback draw thrown in. Meyer arrived in Columbus from Florida as the master of the spread offense, but by the end of his seven years, OSU fans knew he loved nothing more than a power quarterback and power tailback who could run people over after the Buckeyes spread the field. J.K. Dobbins for 35 carries and Fields for 21, that was to Meyer’s liking.

When Ohio State reached an earlier fourth down in the middle of the second quarter, Day turned down a 43-yard field goal try that could have put the Buckeyes up two scores at 10-0. He admitted to some hesitation, “but I try not to second-guess in those moments,” he said. “Trust your instinct and go. And you know what? If it doesn’t work, you’re going to get second-guessed.”

He knew he wouldn’t get second-guessed here because he knew the call would work. The Buckeyes would call a timeout if they didn’t get the right defensive look. But when they motioned Dobbins out of the backfield and went five-wide on fourth-and-5, they get exactly what they wanted -- man coverage and a single linebacker in the middle of the field.

Then, for the first time all season, they called what had been a staple of the Meyer offense with J.T. Barrett at quarterback -- the quarterback draw from an empty set.

“I knew it would work,” said center Josh Myers, who got out and made the block on that linebacker to ensure Fields had room to run. “The way their defense was aligned, as long as we did our job across the board, we knew it would be out.”

Myers said his block was easy. Basically, he just had to get in the way of the linebacker and Fields could cut either way off of him and make the block work. Myers knew Day would go for it there because he had faith in the offense and the game plan. He knew it would work because Penn State wasn’t ready for it, because the Buckeyes had never run it this season. Ten games, and it hadn’t been on film.

“That’s a huge advantage or us,” Myers said. “I’m sure their coaches felt going into the game they had seen most of our offense, and that wasn’t necessarily the case."

That playbook surprise? That’s Day.

Punt and lean on the defense? That’s Tressel.

Run the quarterback as much as it takes to win? That’s Meyer.

Fields’ 21 carries Saturday for 68 yards was his career-high. He hadn’t run it more than 13 times in a game coming in and had averaged 8.4 carries in his first 10 games.

In Barrett’s four years playing for Meyer, he carried the ball at least 15 times in 24 games, an average of six times per season. He ran it at least 20 times in eight games. That was J.T. Fields on Saturday.

“He’s a warrior. I’m telling you, he’s tough,” Day said. “He ran the ball today. He extended plays on third down. Heart of a lion. I love that kid. He’s tough. ... And he’s up for the challenge. Some quarterbacks, they look at you sideways when you have that conversation. He doesn’t. He looked back, ‘Whatever it takes, Coach.’”

That conversation? That was Day and Fields discussing what it might take to beat Penn State in this one.

A little Tressel. A little Meyer. A lot of Day. A tough November win over a ranked Big Ten opponent? That’s Ohio State football.

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