COLUMBUS – After some some sluggish performances to begin the season, Ohio State football coach Ryan Day feels like this team has worked out many of those issues, as his sixth-ranked Buckeyes (3-0) prepare for their match-up with No. 9 Notre Dame (4-0) on Saturday night said Tuesday at his weekly press conference.
“I’m glad we went through those three games to get to this point with some of the new faces we had,” Day said during Tuesday's weekly press conference.
“We did work out some of the issues. I think we have a pretty good idea of who our team is and where we’re at. We are in a much different place than we were in Week One.”
While the Buckeyes 63-10 win over Western Kentucky last Saturday was their best performance to date, Day said there is still work to be done.
“We’ve got to take the next step. We’ve got to continue to ratchet it up because this is a bigger challenge,” he said.
Ohio State had its best game of the season offensively last week when it passed for 358 yards and rushed for 204 yards.
This will be just Ohio State's third visit to Notre Dame and first time since 1996.
Meanwhile, Notre Dame is looking to prevent a sea of red from descending upon Notre Dame Stadium.
The game has been billed as an “Irish Wear Green” game for some time. The Fighting Irish players will don their traditional golden helmets, but they will wear a special monochrome look with both green jerseys and pants in the game. Notre Dame fans are also being asked to wear green as well.
Notre Dame wants to avoid seeing another sea of red inside "The House that Rockne Built". One of the more infamous moments in Irish history happened in 2000 when Nebraska fans invaded the stadium, making Notre Dame Stadium look more like a home game in Lincoln as the Cornhuskers won a dramatic 27-24 game. Red invaded the stadium again in 2017 when more than 30,000 red-clad Georgia fans showed up to see the Bulldogs escape with a 20-19 victory.
And with around 30 recruits expected to be on the sideline during the game, Notre Dame wants to anything in its power to avoid another invasion of opposing fans.
Kickoff is scheduled for primetime (7:30 p.m.) on NBC.
FACTS ABOUT THE SERIES
This is the eighth meeting between the programs and the fifth consecutive – since 1996 – where both are in the Top 10 of the Associated Press poll.
The other Top 10 matchups aside from 2023: 2022 (Ohio State 3; ND 5), 2016 (Ohio State 7; ND 8), 2006 (Ohio State 4; ND 5) and 1996 (Ohio State 4; ND 5).
Notre Dame won the first two games of the series, in 1935 and 1936, and Ohio State has won the last five games, played in 1995, 1996, 2006, 2016 and 2022. The 1936 and 1996 games were played at Notre Dame Stadium.
The game will complete a two-game series between the two powers that was scheduled in 2014 and included the 2022 season opener at Ohio Stadium, won by the Buckeyes, 21-10.
Ohio State (956 wins) and Notre Dame (942) rank second and fourth, respectively, in all-time college football wins. Respective win pcts. of .733 and .730 are No. 1 and No. 4 all-time.
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