ATLANTA — On only a few hours of sleep since his Buckeyes were crowned national champions on Monday night, Ohio State coach Ryan Day knows next year is closing fast.And not just because the Buckeyes start the 2025 regular season against the Texas Longhorns in a high-profile home opener on Aug. 30 already being dissected around Columbus.”Try losing the first game and see how that goes at Ohio State. We’ll see about that,” Day said in Atlanta on Tuesday, his first day as a championship-winning head coach.”We do have a talented group coming back, so we’ll get back and try to figure that out. I don’t know if spring practice is going to look like it usually does. I don’t know if it can for the amount of games these guys have played. But for the young guys, we’ve got to get them going, get them indoctrinated into the program and then we’ll ramp up soon.”Transfer quarterback Will Howard delayed postgame sleep for the short flight back to Ohio, where a dramatic scene awaited seven weeks removed from a loss to defending champion and archrival Michigan in a stunning upset, 13-10. The national narrative in the afterglow of that defeat flickered somewhere between dim and doom. Fans weren’t shy about pointing fingers at Day and in some corners clamored for Urban Meyer to return to rescue the program.Day reminded players the season wasn’t over Nov. 30 when Michigan attempted to plan its flag at Ohio Stadium. After blitzing through the first 12-team College Football Playoff, the Buckeyes (14-2) have a different level of appreciation for the journey they meandered to reach the mountaintop in Georgia on Jan. 20 with a 34-23 victory over Notre Dame.Ohio State linebacker Cody Simon tried to put the entire picture into words Tuesday.