Alright let's get this over with. Ohio State was playing great. Losses on the OL sucked but they kept it together. Offense seemed inevitable. Defense was playing really well, aside from some penalties. Meanwhile, TTUN was 6-5 and with losses to good teams, but also losses to the likes of Illinois, Washington, and Indiana, whom Ohio State had just walloped. Surely this would be the exorcism many of us had long awaited. 

Going Into Week 14

• TTUN was not good. Their QB was trash. Their run game was stale and stoppable. Their defensive line was the brightest spot on the team, with two elite DTs. Surely we would play away from their strengths. They would be without both Will Johnson and Colston Loveland.
• I don't have anything else to say. Yeah, throw out the record books or whatever, but this is a game OSU should win. While some urged caution, I would say that most never felt victory was guaranteed, but the majority were confident that this was an OSU team capable of beating this TTUN team handily. There was definitely a contingent that was already planning how to celebrate the victory. It's a bit rough reading through the thread topics in the leadup to The Game.

Week 14 vs TTUN in 40 Minutes

(Just FYI, this is a TTUN fan channel, not Brodie).

I'm not linking to the open threads. 

Coming Out of Week 14

• wtf
• Game Summary - I didn't read any of this. But from what I remember, despite so many things going wrong, enough went right where I still felt like we could pull ahead the way we did so often. Except this time, we just didn't. Ryan Day approval rating hit rock bottom here. I didn't read all the comments, but there were 571 comments and 301 hits for " Day" (with space) plus 60 hits for "fire."
• Presser Bullets - A stunned Day didn't have any answers for what transpired. Things just didn't work out offensively. But there was plenty of debate in the comments as to the reasons. To this day, I still don't really have an answer, but I didn't much care to look back and search for them. If you don't plan to watch the recap above, I'm right there with you. The defense executed well, though, allowing only 6 points outside of an interception that was returned to the 2 yard line. 
• Three Key Stats - Two bad interceptions and poor red zone execution hurt Ohio State badly in this game. While the defense didn't allow many points, the TTUN run game was able to rack up a respectable 172 yards and possess the ball for over 13 minutes of the 4th quarter. With 5:09 to go in the 3rd quarter, OSU would only have the ball for 1:57 more.
• Fallout - There's really no sugarcoating it. As a result of what was surely the most embarrassing and unacceptable loss of his coaching career, Ryan Day came under immense fire from every direction after this game. Of course fans were outraged at losing a game we had no business losing. The media also felt this should be it for Day (though they would later seem to forget it was not just the lunatic fringe saying this). Former players had seen enough. Jilted players took their shots. Even within the program, things needed to be sorted out. 

Okay. I don't really want to read any more of this. It was a bad loss. Things were grim. It would be a tense and uncomfortable three weeks until the playoffs. 

Up Next: #9 Tennessee in the Shoe in December.