Urban Meyer shares Ryan Day's incredible mindset after Ohio State's loss to Indiana

For the second-straight season, Ohio State will enter the College Football Playoffs coming off of a loss. Last year, the loss to Michigan stunned Ryan Day at the time, but proved to be a blessing in disguise as the Buckeyes came together as a team and won all four playoff games to claim the national championship.

This year, Ohio State had its 16-game win streak snapped in a 13-10 loss to Indiana in the Big Ten Championship. The loss dropped the Buckeyes into the No. 2 seed of the CFP 12-team bracket. A few days after the game, Day caught up with former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer and had a much different reaction to the Buckeyes' first defeat of the season.

"I think this is kind of what we needed," Day said according to Meyer.

Meyer, a three-time national championship coach who led Ohio State to the first CFP title in 2014, said that as long as the Buckeyes locker room is mature, they should be alright.

"If you're coaching a locker room of grown-ass men...older, mature guys...If it's a mature locker room that goes to work and plays to their potential, there's a great chance they could win this thing. Now if it's a younger team, they won't," Meyer said.

Meyer speaks from his own experiences

All three of Meyer's championship teams lost a game during the course of the season back during a time when one loss could keep a team on the outside looking in. But in each case, Meyer had teams that were led by experienced players that were able to use the losses as motivation to dominate the rest of the schedule.

That was what happened for the Buckeyes last year, but a lot of the key pieces on that roster are in the NFL now. Even though Day was stunned by the loss to the Wolverines, and it left him very emotional, he had an experienced group that rallied around him. This is the first time the 2025 Buckeyes have lost, and we just don't know how they are going to react in the Cotton Bowl against Miami or Texas A&M. 

The talent is there for a back-to-back run, there's absolutely no doubt about that. But do these Buckeyes have the will? We'll find out soon enough.