Ohio State Football: Coaching will decide winner of Fiesta Bowl

As the Ohio State football team prepares to take on Clemson this Saturday night in the Fiesta Bowl, coaching will play a pivotal role in the outcome.

This Ohio State football team can look across the field on Saturday night and see a team that is very much like itself. With four and five-star athletes and future NFL draft picks all over the place, this game is sure to be extremely exciting.

But when the talent on the field is equated such as this, then what becomes the deciding factor in the game? Is it quarterback play?  Is it who ever has the ball last? Is it who wins the turnover battle?

For sure all those things play a factor in the outcome, but I believe the difference is coaching and how well prepared the team is for the game at hand. That is why this game is so hard to pick a winner of, both coaching staffs have been excellent all season long.

Clemson’s coaching staff has obviously been together longer, has won it all and has been to the championship game multiple times, but there is something about the way that Ohio State head coach Ryan Day gets this team ready to play each and every week.

What stands out about Day’s preparation this week is the fact that he is going about it the exact same way he has been all season. And that bodes well for the Buckeyes.

Flying in to Arizona on Sunday, Day has been able to replicate the exact same game week  preparation that he would go about if the Buckeyes were playing in Columbus. A walk-through on Sunday followed by some intense practices and game prep Monday through Thursday, and finally what they call “The best Friday’s in football” where practice is loose and fun as they get ready to play the following day.

Here is what Day said about their preparation, via Cleveland.com:

"“The first thing is you have to believe, you have to believe that you belong as national champs. You go from there. Our preparation doesn’t need to change in terms of what we’ve done to this point. We don’t need guys to do extraordinary things. We need them to continue what they’re doing. The most important thing, at any cost, whatever it takes to win, you do. Everybody has to be willing to do whatever it takes. Selfishness can’t be in the way at this point. I mean, it has to be everybody on board doing everything they can to win every play. You talk about every yard mattering, every first down mattering, every series mattering, that’s going to be the case here. All hands on deck. We got to be really efficient. We have to believe we can win the whole thing.”"

Judging by the limited practice video that has surfaced this week, via Colin Hass-Hill of Eleven Warriors,  I would say that Day has got his guys believing that they can be crowned champions.

Also worth noting is the fact of how well coached this team has been for specific games. Schematically, especially on defense, this team is light years ahead of where it was last season. And I would venture to say that they are one of the better coaching staffs in respect to in-game adjustments, see Penn State and both Wisconsin games as evidence for that.

When the talent on the field is equal, and by the look of it on paper they are, then coaching will be the deciding factor in this game. Both fan bases have a legitimate reason to believe that their coaching staffs will put their players in the best possible situation to succeed.

If there is just one lapse in judgement on game day though, then that could be the break that the other team needs to steal this game. Day needs to have his best game as a coach in order to win this game, and that is something he is very capable of doing.