Ohio State coach Ryan Day said Thursday that his team is on track to play in the College Football Playoff National Championship presented by AT&T against No. 1 Alabama on Monday despite ongoing coronavirus issues.
In his first comments since reports earlier in the week that there were discussions about possibly delaying the game, Day said the Buckeyes would have “plenty of players” available without providing specific numbers or player updates.
Ohio State has dealt with coronavirus issues going back to late November, when it canceled a game against Illinois, and has played multiple games with key starters out — including the College Football Playoff semifinal at the Allstate Sugar Bowl against Clemson.
Day himself also had the coronavirus and missed the Michigan State game Dec. 5.
“Any time you deal with that, and lose people it is a gut punch,” Day said. “But it’s not something we’re not used to. We’ve had starters all over the place down. We’ve just found ways to work through it. You can feel sorry for yourself, or you can continue to work on and push through it. For us, that’s why the story about this season is so amazing to me. We continue to push through despite all these difficult challenges along the way, and no different this week. We got a new set of challenges this week. We’re going to have to figure it out, go down to Miami and play.”
CFP executive director Bill Hancock had said earlier this week that the national championship game remained on schedule.