Monday marks the start of a new week of preparation for Ohio State, as the No. 3-ranked Buckeyes get ready for their second road trip of the season this weekend.

The Buckeyes take on a Maryland team that seems to have already flipped the script on a poor 2019 season, and after knocking off Minnesota and Penn State in consecutive weeks, few are expecting to see quite the same level of blowout that Ohio State delivered against the Terrapins a season ago.

Buckeye head coach Ryan Day spoke on 97.1 The Fan's "Buckeye Roundtable" show on Monday about what he's seen from Maryland so far, and tied up a couple other loose ends from Ohio State's 49-27 win against Rutgers on Saturday.

Here are three interesting things Day had to say on the show.

Day said more than once last week that this season’s Rutgers team isn’t the same as last year’s, and he’ll likely be preaching that message to his team this week as well.

Maryland will enter the matchup on the heels of wins against Minnesota and Penn State, the latter being a 35-7 blowout at the start of the fourth quarter, and the Terrapins have a new weapon at quarterback.

Taulia Tagovailoa, Tua’s little brother, has put up big numbers the past two weeks, including back-to-back performances with three passing touchdowns and at least 280 yards.

But that’s no surprise to Day.

“Tauli is a good player, I recruited him when he was at Alabama,” Day said. “Got to know he and the family, very great football people, really good family. We knew he was gonna be a really good player, and happy for him that he’s doing well.

Day said head coach Mike Locksley and company have “upgraded their talent,” and he said that goes beyond just the quarterback position.

“They play with a lot of confidence. The quarterback the last two weeks has played well, they have a couple good receivers who are talented,” Day said. “Defense really did a great job last week against Penn State, played a lot of man coverage, disrupted the pass game.”

What looked like an easy win on the schedule for the Buckeyes a few weeks ago might suddenly be a real challenge for Ohio State, should the Terrapins resemble the form they took against the Nittany Lions this past weekend.

Of all the games for Ohio State to pull out all the stops, one wouldn’t assume it would be against Rutgers.

However, with all the tricks up Greg Schiano’s sleeves Saturday, Day showed he wasn’t the only one that had a little something special planned.

On fourth-and-8 from their own 36-yard-line, the Buckeyes rolled the dice with a fake punt that paid off in spades. Instead of a Drue Chrisman punt, redshirt freshman running back Steele Chambers took the ball 38 yards on the ground to pick up the first down and much more.

Day said he committed to the trick play well before kickoff.

“Before the game, when we do our walkthroughs, I told the team that the first time we got an opportunity to do it, we’re gonna do it,” Day said. “Knowing that we have a great defense and that if it doesn’t work out the way we want it to, we need to get a stop and at least hold them to three points, and that we were gonna be aggressive and we were gonna do it the first time out.”

Day said special teams coordinator Matt Barnes drew up the play, but a good design didn’t make it much easier for the head coach to pull the trigger when he was actually faced with the situation.

“The guys get all fired up, but it’s one thing to say it and it’s another thing to do it when you’re in the moment, and so you kind of hold your breath, but those guys were holding me to it, and it worked out,” Day said. “So it was well done.”

Following the game Saturday, Day said practice habits were partially to blame for Ohio State’s flat performance in the second half, a 30-minute period in which the Buckeyes were actually outscored by the Scarlet Knights.

The Buckeyes were off Monday, but Day isn’t forgetting about the poor effort seen in the final two frames from his team this past weekend.

“We got to do a better job bringing energy,” Day said. “Up 35-3, empty stadium coming out, we know that’s gonna be the case. We gotta do a better job, and we will.”

What many thought would be an opportunity for Ohio State backups and younger talent to make big plays at the end of a blowout ended up becoming a game in which Justin Fields took all but one snap for the Buckeye offense.

Day said both he and the players were not expecting the starters to have to play as much as they did after building a big lead early.

“Human nature for some of those guys is that they’re gonna play one more series and then call it a night, and that didn’t happen,” Day said. “We’re very disappointed that didn’t happen.”

Come Saturday though, the Buckeyes will get another chance to turn in a more complete performance from start to finish than what they’ve exhibited the past couple weeks.