National champion Ryan Day makes a bold statement about Ohio State's upcoming practices after longest season ever

Coach Ryan Day and the Ohio State Buckeyes beat the Notre Dame Fighting Irish 34-23 in the National Championship Game on Monday. With the win, the Buckeyes won their first National Championship in over a decade. However, they won't have long to celebrate.

The Buckeyes are expected to start practicing and preparing for next season in only six weeks. Reporter Dan Hope reported on Tuesday morning what Ryan Day had to say when asked about spring practices for his Buckeyes squad.

“I don’t know if spring practice is going to look the way it usually does. I don’t know that it can, quite honestly, with the amount of games these guys have played.”

Ryan Day and the Ohio State Buckeyes might take a different approach to offseason training after playing more games than ever

College football implemented the 12-team playoff format for the first time this season. As a result of the new format, teams that make deep playoff runs play more games than ever. Ryan Day and the Ohio State Buckeyes played nearly the maximum number of games possible for a college football team.

His team played the standard 12 regular season games. Then, since they did not earn a first-round bye, they played four games in the college football playoff. So, they played a total of 16 games this season. The only way they could have played more games is if they played and then lost the Big Ten Championship Game.

If that happened, the Buckeyes would have played 17 games this season. If they won that game, they would have earned a first-round bye and still played 16 games. However, they did not qualify for the game, and as a result, played 16 games.

In previous years, there were only two rounds of the playoffs. So, the most games a team could play in a season was 15.

The increased workload from the 12-team playoff format means teams will need to have a different approach in off-season training. Players will need more time to recover and will not be able to get into intense training as quickly.

Ryan Day agrees with that, saying that he does not know if offseason training can be approached in the same way as it was in previous years. It will be interesting to see how the Buckeyes approach this offseason.