COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Top-ranked Ohio State is rested twice over and preparing to finish the regular season with a five-game stretch that culminates in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
The Buckeyes’ open weekends (Sept. 20 and Oct. 25) essentially broke the season into thirds for coach Ryan Day and his staff.
They focused extensive energy on the season-opening visit from Texas, faced Grambling State and Ohio University, and then got a break. After facing Washington, Minnesota, Illinois and Wisconsin, Ohio State (7-0, 4-0 Big Ten) got another day off last weekend.
Now it's Penn State, Purdue, UCLA, Rutgers and 21st-ranked rival Michigan.
Day’s plan is for this final stretch to lead to a defense of last year's national championship in the College Football Playoff.
The Nittany Lions (3-4, 0-4) began the season ranked No. 2 behind Texas (one spot ahead of Ohio State) but are unranked this week after losing four games in a row and having coach James Franklin fired.
Day came to his weekly press conference Tuesday armed with coaching cliches: Penn State is better than its record, which doesn’t matter anyway because the Buckeyes are more focused on what they're doing.
“We know that this is one of the top 5, 10 teams in the country. I don’t think there’s many teams in the country that have more talent than Penn State has, and I think people recognized that early in the season,” Day said of the Nittany Lions.
After coming up just short in overtime against Oregon on Sept. 27, Penn State was upset at UCLA and at home against Northwestern.
Senior quarterback Drew Allar suffered a season-ending ankle injury against the Wildcats. Franklin was fired within a day of the loss.
Last week, Penn State lost 25-24 at Iowa under interim coach Terry Smith and new starting QB Ethan Grunkemeyer.
“Sure, it hasn’t gone the way they’ve wanted it to, but that doesn’t change that they still have really good players, and when you looked at this game a few months ago, it was an absolute matchup game,” Day said. “That has not changed. It’s still the same players other than the quarterback. And so our guys know that. They understand that. And they know that it’s about us. It’s not about our opponent.”
Day’s team is No. 1 in the country in total defense and scoring defense while the offense has been brought along more slowly with first-year quarterback Julian Sayin and play-caller Brian Hartline.
Among the areas Day wants to see improve is the Ohio State running game, which ranks 71st in the nation in yards per game (151.7) and 51st in yards per carry (4.58).
Penn State also has struggled to stop the run, allowing 158.7 yards per game (90th nationally) under new defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, who ditched the Buckeyes in that same role to coach for the Nittany Lions.
His return is among the subplots to the game Saturday as the teams face off for the 33rd consecutive season.
“Like any relationship when it breaks off, sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, but there really hasn’t been much communication,” Day said. “He did a great job when he was here, helped us win a national championship and kind of left it at that. And then it was, ‘Hey, we got to go make a replacement and move on from there.’ So I really respect the work that he did when he was here.”
Asked if Knowles leaving for another Big Ten team was different than going somewhere else, Day replied, “I guess when you look at the NFL, you see more of that than you would in college, but I guess we’re getting more like the NFL. So we try not to take those things personal, but we are human.”
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Ohio State head coach Ryan Day leads his team on the field before an NCAA college football game against the Wisconsin Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025, in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Protests sweeping across Iran neared the two-week mark Saturday, with the country’s government acknowledging the ongoing demonstrations despite an intensifying crackdown and as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world.
With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. But the death toll in the protests has grown to at least 65 people killed and over 2,300 others detained, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. Iranian state TV is reporting on security force casualties while portraying control over the nation.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has signaled a coming clampdown, despite U.S. warnings.
“The United States supports the brave people of Iran,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote Saturday on the social platform X. The State Department separately warned: “Do not play games with President Trump. When he says he’ll do something, he means it.”
Saturday marks the start of the work week in Iran, but many schools and universities reportedly held online classes, Iranian state TV reported.
State TV repeatedly played a driving, martial orchestral arrangement from the “Epic of Khorramshahr” by Iranian composer Majid Entezami, while showing pro-government demonstrations. The song, aired repeatedly during the 12-day war launched by Israel, honors Iran's 1982 liberation of the city of Khorramshahr during the Iran-Iraq war. It has been used in videos of protesting women cutting away their hair to protest the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini as well.
“Field reports indicate that peace prevailed in most cities of the country at night,” a state TV anchor reported. “After a number of armed terrorists attacked public places and set fire to people’s private property last night, there was no news of any gathering or chaos in Tehran and most provinces last night.”
That was directly contradicted by an online video verified by The Associated Press that showed demonstrations in northern Tehran's Saadat Abad area, with what appeared to be thousands on the street.
“Death to Khamenei!” a man chanted.
The semiofficial Fars news agency, believed to be close to Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and one of the few media outlets able to publish to the outside world, released surveillance camera footage of what it said came from demonstrations in Isfahan. In it, a protester appeared to fire a long gun, while others set fires and threw gasoline bombs at what appeared to be a government compound.
The Young Journalists' Club, associated with state TV, reported that protesters killed three members of the Guard’s all-volunteer Basij force in the city of Gachsaran. It also reported a security official was stabbed to death in Hamadan province, a police officer killed in the port city of Bandar Abbas and another in Gilan, as well as one person slain in Mashhad.
State television also aired footage of a funeral service attended by hundreds in Qom, a Shiite seminary city just south of Tehran.
Iran’s theocracy cut off the nation from the internet and international telephone calls on Thursday, though it allowed some state-owned and semiofficial media to publish. Qatar's state-funded Al Jazeera news network reported live from Iran, but they appeared to be the only major foreign outlet able to work.
Iran's exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who called for protests Thursday and Friday, asked demonstrators to take to the streets Saturday and Sunday with Iran's old lion-and-sun flag, used during the time of the shah.
Pahlavi's support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past — particularly after the 12-day war. Demonstrators have shouted in support of the shah in some protests, but it isn’t clear whether that’s support for Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country's economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran's theocracy.
In this frame grab from video taken by an individual not employed by The Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran shows a fire as people protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)
In this frame grab from video taken by an individual not employed by The Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran shows people during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)
This frame grab from a video released Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, by Iranian state television shows a man holding a device to document burning vehicles during a night of mass protests in Zanjan, Iran. (Iranian state TV via AP)
