Ryan Day tries to hype Wisconsin, but even he can’t sell it

Ryan Day, in his weekly press conference, wanted to make sure he conveyed a tone that he's taking the Wisconsin matchup seriously. And yet, it came across as a stumbling mess of words in which he literally couldn't find more than a few nice things to say about the state of Wisconsin football right now. You can't blame him. How do you sell this Badger team as anything but terrible?

The video is below, and the best part may be when he tried to figure out how to hype up the Badgers, "This is a team that's uhhhh....ummm..." long pause, "has good players and is playing very hard." You can tell he doesn't buy it himself. Oh, but there's more, watch for yourself:

Ohio State's Ryan Day tries his best to preview Wisconsin ahead of the game on Saturday

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It is hilarious that he doesn't say anything about the scheme or the coaches. In fact, it's almost like he is taking Luke Fickell's advice to the Wisconsin fans, about at least cheering for the players. For Day, the nicest thing he could come up with for the Badgers was having good players who are trying hard. It's so sad, it's kind of funny.

He caught himself at one moment when he was talking about their hard schedule, "They have been right there with all of them...well, a bunch of them."

It's part of the coach speaking to sell your opponent, and he needs to do so not just for the press but for his players. Even though Wisconsin is down bad, it's still a Big Ten football game, and he doesn't want his players to look past the Badgers.

The hard part for Day is that it's hard to really hype them up. The part he can rely on is his statement about trusting the Ohio State process, doing their thing, and preparing as they usually do, regardless of the opponent. That's the key, not hyping up Wisconsin.