Lou Holtz stands by Ohio State remark -- Good, not great team - ESPN

Lou Holtz said he understood why his comments about Ohio State before last week's game at Notre Dame bothered Buckeyes coach Ryan Day, but he reiterated his belief that the Fighting Irish are a superior team despite their 17-14 loss.

Speaking Tuesday to Dan Dakich on the Outkick show «Don't @ Me!» Holtz said he called Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman to apologize for possibly putting the Irish in a difficult position. Holtz told «The Pat McAfee Show» before Saturday's game that Ohio State had not been physical enough to beat premier opponents, citing the team's consecutive losses to Michigan and its CFP defeats against Georgia, Alabama and Clemson.

«I don't feel bad about saying it because I believed it,» Holtz told Dakich. «Notre Dame was a better football team. Three times, Ohio State had fourth-and-1, ran the ball and couldn't make it.… If I was coaching, I would have said it. I would [have] went to our team and said, 'I think you're better. I think you're more physical. I think you're more talented.'

»But when I say something and yet I can't control the outcome of the game, that's unfair to Coach Freeman."

An emotional Day cited Holtz's comments in his on-field interview with NBC after the Buckeyes' win and then again in his postgame news conference, saying that Holtz and others who questioned Ohio State's toughness and physicality need to «put the film on.»

«We always say, 'Ignore the noise,' but every once in a while, after a while someone's poking at you, you've got to stand up for what you believe in,» Day said. «To see some of the things that were said, I get Ohio against the world, but we needed to go play like that today. We needed to win like that, to stop that narrative that's going on, because it's not