Ryan Day’s team is heading into one of the biggest games of the season against Michigan in two weeks, but misery came beforehand. As such, they lost two of their offensive weapons to injury, giving a huge blow to Ohio State’s wide receiver room. First, Carnell Tate went down with an unspecified injury before Purdue and missed two games. Now, even Jeremiah Smith went out of the UCLA game limping at halftime. But despite the recent shake-up, Day looks unfazed.

Heading into the game, Smith had a “questionable” status but didn’t seem to struggle while playing against UCLA as he recorded 4 catches for 40 yards. But then, at the end of the second quarter, after making an incredible one-handed catch, he was seen having some trouble with his leg. After which, he didn’t return for the second part of the game and headed to the locker room hobbling.

The same happened to Carnell Tate, who suffered an ailment during pregame warmups and didn’t enter the game, which makes the matter even more concerning. But Ryan Day’s focus is to keep his players healthy. There’s a high chance he’ll even keep them out against Rutgers to make sure they get proper time to rest before going up against Michigan, as ESPN’s Pete Thamel shares Day’s update on both of his WRs on X: “Ryan Day said in the postgame that he’s not worried about Carnell Tate or Jeremiah Smith in the long term. Smith didn’t play in the second half with what Day called a “little bit of a nagging issue.”

Well, even if Ryan Day looks calm, the scare of losing your two best players, who have combined for 1,600 receiving yards, is concerning. Jeremiah Smith is the most dynamic player in the Bucks’ offense, starting in all 25 games of his career. Since his freshman year he’s been turning heads, recording 76 receptions for 1,315 yards with 15 touchdowns. Even this year he started off on a strong note, entering week 11 with 862 yards and 10 touchdowns.

He even put up a strong game against Purdue last week when Tate was out because of injury, catching 10 passes for 137 yards with a touchdown. So, the timing of his injury is still not known. But Day made it pretty clear that they entered Saturday’s game expecting Smith to have “a certain amount of plays he could go,” and to play safe, he didn’t enter the game in the second half.

That’s exactly why even Carnell Tate didn’t play for two straight games this season after he faced some issue during warmups last week. “Something was there, so we just wanted to be really careful,” Day said. “Could he have played? Yeah, probably. But we’re just gonna rest him to make sure.” Now, let’s just hope both of them come up strong against Michigan if they miss their game against Rutgers.

Ryan Day’s team comes up strong against UCLA

Ohio State stayed unbeaten after coming up strong against UCLA with a 48-10 record. Even though the team didn’t have two of their star players, every other player was in their best form. James Peoples delivers the highlight of the night with a 19-yard hurdle-filled touchdown run just before halftime and adds another score late in the 4th quarter.

Then their special team too lit up the field when Lorenzo Styles Jr. returned a 100-yard kick for a touchdown, making it their first kick return score since 2010 and first 100-yard return since Ted Ginn in 2005.

Then QB Julian Sayin also stayed efficient, completing 23 of 31 passes for 184 yards with a TD even without his top receivers. Now, with that, the team is heading to another knockout win against Rutgers next week, until they face Michigan. Let’s wait and see if the momentum stays the same against them too or not!