After Saturday night’s stunning 24-23 loss to Texas, during which Ohio State blew what was a 23-3 lead over the final 15 minutes, head coach Ryan Day said that the Buckeyes “have to win the fourth quarter.”

So let’s talk about that fourth quarter for a moment, and how the Buckeyes could have won those fateful 15 minutes.

It starts with something of a theme for Day’s teams, when leads are built in big games against good teams. The Buckeyes got conservative on both sides of the football, letting the collective foot off the gas and getting away from what helped them build that 20-point advantage, and put the Longhorns on the cusp of being run out of their own building.

Defensively, after confusing and pestering Arch Manning for the better part of three quarters, Matt Patricia went soft. Zone coverages with three or four pass rushers allowed Manning and the Texas offense to get into something of a rhythm, and the Longhorns converted a pair of critical fourth-down conversions during the comeback, including a 12-yard gain on 4th-and-6 early in the fourth quarter, with Texas on their own 32-yard line.

A stop on any of those situations would have preserved the Ohio State win. Instead, Texas scored three touchdowns on three possessions in the fourth quarter.

Asked after the game if there was anything the Buckeyes could have done differently, Day had this to say:

There was some Cover 8 for sure, which I thought for a good portion of the game was well done. When it’s time to get pressure, especially when you need to, that’s the bottom line. You look at all of it: scheme, personnel, everything. So it’s hard to say.

Then there is the offensive side of the football. Again, it was aggression that helped Ohio State build the 23-3 lead. But as the Texas comeback unfolded, the Ohio State offense played like it was parking the bus. After Texas scored early in the fourth quarter to cut the score to 23-10, the Buckeyes went three-and-out.

With two runs and an incompletion.

Ohio State “never got ourselves in a rhythm in the second half like we should have,” said Day after the game.

Then after another Texas touchdown, came the decision to send transfer kicker Connor Hawkins out to attempt a 46-yard field goal, after an incompletion on a deep throw to Jeremiah Smith. Hawkins pulled the kick to the left, leaving the score at 23-17 and setting the stage for the final touchdown drive from the Longhorns.

And settling for a field goal there, and not keeping the offense on the field to try and move the chains, was another example of easing off the gas.

Regarding the offense, Day had this to say after the loss:

On offense, we had opportunities in the third quarter and the second half. We just weren’t efficient enough. We got ourselves into situations we should have addressed and fixed.

Now we can talk about the final deathblow for the Buckeyes: How they managed the Longhorns’ final possession.

Texas got to the Ohio State 1-yard line with just around a minute remaining, with the Buckeyes holding one final time out. Instead of letting the Longhorns score, and giving Julian Sayin and the Ohio State offense enough time to get back into field goal range, Day decided to play defense.

That worked, until it backfired spectacularly. The Buckeyes managed to stop a pair of runs, setting up a 3rd-and-goal situation from the 1-yard line. But Hollywood Smothers vaulted into the end zone for the game-tying touchdown, and the PAT gave Texas the lead.

Instead of having enough time to mount a drive, the Buckeyes had just 25 seconds to work with, and that was nowhere near enough.

And nowhere near what they could have had.

Day admitted after the game that he considered letting Texas score, but they trusted the defense to get a stop.

We talked about stopping them and then taking our chances and putting the ball down for one yard and seeing if we could stop them for two downs. They scored there on second down.

Yeah, I considered it. I felt like at that point we were just going to trust the defense to get off the field.

This, despite all the evidence the prior 14 minutes had given Day. Texas had scored on both of its possessions in the fourth quarter already, and asking a tired defense on a hot Austin night to make four stops from the 1-yard line is simply asking too much.

But that is what Day asked for. Too much.

He also talked about accountability after the loss.

We’re going to take ownership of this. We’re going to stick together. I can’t sit here and tell you it’s just one area. I don’t think it was completely perfect by any stretch of the imagination. It’s all three phases, of course.

Anytime we put a game plan together, we all talk about it and go through it. We want to make sure we’re doing everything we can. That’s in all three phases. Responsibility goes across the board.

Day has won a national title, and no one can take that away. And no one should take anything away from Texas after Saturday night, given how they fought back to win after going down 23-3.

But regarding ownership and accountability, consider this. It was the biggest blown lead of Day’s career.

Or how about this ancedote:

The Buckeyes are now 1-3 over their last four games, with the only win coming against Ball State a week ago. That includes losses to Indiana in the Big Ten Championship Game at the end of last season, a loss to Miami in the College Football Playoff, and now a loss to Texas in brutal fashion, wherein the team blew a 20-point lead.

There is certainly a long way to go this season, and the Buckeyes are talented enough to stay right in the title conversation.

But they, and Day, need to learn from this loss.

Fast.