Ryan Day’s mood was good during Tuesday’s weekly press conference, as he discussed one of the biggest victories in recent Ohio State football history.

The Buckeyes solved Penn State in a 60-minute battle, prevailing 20-13 to keep their College Football Playoff hopes firmly intact. But while the win was glorious, everything about it wasn’t, and Day made sure his quarterback knew that. Will Howard threw for 182 yards and 2 touchdowns in helping Ohio State overcome an early 10-0 deficit in a hostile environment, and that was great and all.

But what about Howard’s turnovers? There was the pick-6 that Howard tossed in the first quarter that handed Penn State that 10-0 lead and that was bad enough. But it wasn’t Howard’s only costly mistake on the day. There was also the fumble near the Nittany Lions goal line that killed a drive midway through the 2nd quarter and prevented the Buckeyes from taking a commanding 21-10 lead.

Maybe if Howard doesn’t fumble there, the game is different, and Ohio State has a much easier time of it in getting the win. That was Day’s point on Tuesday. He wanted to drive it home that those turnovers can’t take place.

“It can’t happen. It can’t happen,” said Day. “We’ve got to take care of the football. The first play, he got fooled a little bit in terms of what he saw. That, unfortunately sometimes like that, those things will happen, but we can’t fumble the ball inside the 10-yard line. You just can’t do it.”

Day knows the game was won, and that’s great, but he wanted this to be a teaching moment.

“We were fortunate in the game because of the play of so many guys down the stretch, and it turned into a four-quarter game because of that,” said Day. “We take care of the ball better, it doesn’t have to be that way. And (Howard) knows that. We’re going to keep hammering it home this week and (make) a huge emphasis on execution and taking care of the ball.”

Howard will try to keep those turnovers down in Week 11 as the Buckeyes host Purdue in a noon ET kickoff on FOX.