Turns out Ohio State football coach Ryan Day didn’t have the last word with the No. 4 Buckeyes’ dramatic victory over host Notre Dame on Saturday night.
Former Fighting Irish coach Lou Holtz — whose pregame comments questioning Ohio State’s toughness had Day fired up in his postgame interview on the field in South Bend, Ind. — fired back on Tuesday.
“He doesn’t want to talk about Michigan (because he’s) 0-2,” Holtz said on the “Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakich podcast. “He doesn’t want to talk about the big game coming up against Penn State and against Michigan again. He’s a great coach. He’s done a tremendous job. He’s a great offensive mind.
“Ohio State’s a good football team, but I don’t think they’re a great football team, and he can go after me all he wants.”
Holtz didn’t stop there, saying that now-No. 11 Notre Dame, which lost 17-14 on a goal-line touchdown run in the final seconds, was the better and more physical team.
“I’m sorry that coach Day was offended by it and I hope he goes on and has a wonderful year,” Holtz, a College Football Hall of Fame coach, said on the podcast. “I don’t think they’ll be a great football team, I really don’t. I felt Notre Dame won the football game.”
Holtz had fired the first shot Friday on the “The Pat McAfee Show” when he claimed that Day-coached teams at Ohio State were not tough enough in losses to Alabama, Georgia, Clemson, Michigan (twice) “and everybody who beats them does so because they’re more physical than Ohio State.”
Day didn’t let those comments slide as his team celebrated moments after the victory.
“I’d like to know where Lou Holtz is right now,” Day said on NBC. “What he said about our team, I cannot believe. This is a tough team right here. We’re proud to be from Ohio. … It’s always been Ohio against the world, and it will continue to be Ohio against the world.”
Holtz did apologize — to Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman on Monday for providing Ohio State with more motivation with his comments, he said on the podcast Tuesday.
“I called coach Freeman and apologized,” Holtz said. “I don’t feel bad about saying it because I believed it. Notre Dame was a better football team. Three times, Ohio State had fourth-and-1, ran the ball and couldn’t make it. … If I was coaching, I would have said it.
“I would (have) went to our team and said, ‘I think you’re better. I think you’re more physical. I think you’re more talented.'”
–Field Level Media