On what happened in the game
I think when you looked at the first half, physically, we were playing really well up front, especially on defense. I’m not sure how many yards they had in the first half running the ball. Then they had those two long plays. In the second half, it was more of the same; too many big plays. When you look at the game, there was just way too many big plays. On offense, we had too many penalties and it got us off schedule. We just didn’t do a good job converting on third down and then it gets out of hand at the end because we are probably throwing the ball too much.
On OSU's defense
I’m going to have to look and see where all the breakdowns were. But it wasn’t just one area, it was a missed tackle on the first play and then we got beat on the second play. There was obviously some misfits in the run game on other plays and then there was the pass to the tight ends. A few plays in the back end and then a couple on the run. The first thing we need to do in games like this is play great defense. Other than two plays in the first half, I thought we did, but not in the second half.
On whether OSU missed an opportunity to take control of the game
I think it was a combination of a lot of things. We spend a lot of time trying to come up with things that we think can get us into the endzone. Sometimes it's execution, sometimes its other things. I think those were opportunities for us to jump ahead, certainly, early on in the game. It didn't happen.
On the emotions after the game
Hard to say right now because this is not the outcome we all envisioned. I thought we had really good preparation. I thought we were building towards playing really well in this game. We were fighting there in the first half. I felt really good going into the second half and we just didn’t execute well enough in the first half. I thought we played hard, I thought we were fighting out there, but in the end, we came up short.
On what OSU does to move forward
We'll figure out what's next. I don't know exactly what is next right now but that's life at Ohio State. I certainly know what this game means to everybody. When you lose, it all comes back to me. I'm the head coach and that's what probably hurts the most.
On the late field goal
I think in games like that, you have to play the field position game. Fourth and five, around midfield, it was fourth and three, fourth and two, I think maybe you take a shot there. I didn't feel like we were desperate at that point. I felt like that was the right thing to do. I just feel like you're not in those situations if you're converting on third down. We didn't do that today.
On how the team handled emotions
I thought we had a great week. Emotionally, we came into this thing swinging. We came up short. Just have to get my mind wrapped around that today and how we didn't finish this thing the right way.
On Michigan making big plays
You just have to back and before you say something that's incorrect because everything is happening so fast, certainly there were breakdowns in the backend. That was clear to see. When you do that in a big game, you saw what happened. The margin for error is so tiny and, all of the sudden, the flood gates opened up and the game gets out of control. Should've never happened.
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