With two weeks left before the schedule gets serious, top-ranked Ohio State’s mission Saturday night is simple: stay ruthless. The Buckeyes host UCLA in Ohio Stadium with a 9-0, 6-0 Big Ten record and are favored by 31½ points over the 3-6, 3-3 Bruins. They’ve steamrolled their conference slate so far, winning Big Ten games by an average of 26.2 points, including back-to-back 24-point wins over Penn State and at Purdue.

The one guy refusing to enjoy the blowouts is Ryan Day.

“And so it’s one thing to say, ‘OK, we’ve done X, Y, and Z up until this point,’ but that means absolutely nothing, like zero. We’ve done nothing,” Day said after Wednesday’s practice. “So I understand everyone’s gonna talk about those things, but none of that has anything to do with what we’re doing moving forward. So if we think that has anything to do with this weekend or where we’re going, then we’re dead wrong. So we have to make sure we all understand that.”

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After UCLA, Ohio State hosts Rutgers before the Nov. 29 showdown at Michigan, with a potential Big Ten title game rematch against Indiana and another College Football Playoff run in sight. Day hasn’t backed off the biggest target imaginable.

“We said this from the beginning, we wanna be the first (Ohio State) team ever to be back-to-back. And that’s a tall task. It’s easy to say, but it’s another thing to do. And so we’re in the middle of it right now, but we’ve got a lot of work to do and we gotta continue to stay focused on what matters,” he said.

He’s also trying to keep his stars grounded.

Quarterback Julian Sayin leads the FBS in completion percentage (80.9%) and passer rating (192.6), while Jeremiah Smith is second nationally with 10 receiving touchdowns and sits sixth in both receptions (65) and yards (862).

“Our guys understand that if you win as a team, then everybody’s going to do well. I think you can see that with Jeremiah. You can see it with Julian. They both are pulling for each other. If I started to feel like it was becoming an individual thing, then yeah, we’d probably put a stop to it,” Day said.

UCLA arrives reeling after a 56-6 beatdown at Indiana. Interim coach Tim Skipper is 3-3 since replacing DeShaun Foster and says the Bruins’ focus has to turn inward.

“It’s always going to come back to us just doing what we’re supposed to do. The big message from that game to this one will be starting fast. We have to take care of us. We can’t worry about who we were playing and things like that,” Skipper said.

The Bruins will lean heavily on quarterback Nico Iamaleava, who returns to the Horseshoe after facing Ohio State in last year’s CFP first round with Tennessee. He went 14 of 31 for 104 yards and ran 20 times for 47 yards in that 42-17 loss, and now sits second in the Big Ten among quarterbacks with 474 rushing yards.

“He takes hits, but he’ll get back up and do his thing. You just got to be aware of his feet, him on the ground and in the air because he can hurt you both ways,” defensive tackle Eddrick Houston said.

“He played tough in the playoff game here, and I’m watching him play the last few weeks, and man, he’s physical, he runs hard,” Day added.

Personnel-wise, Ohio State could again be without Carnell Tate, who missed the Purdue game as a precaution. Tate has 39 catches for 711 yards and seven touchdowns. The biggest lineup question is at right guard, where Josh Padilla returns from injury to rejoin a rotation with Tegra Tshabola and Ethan Onianwa after no one fully seized the job last week.

There’s also history on the line for Day.

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A win over UCLA would give him a sixth season with at least 10 victories, moving him past Woody Hayes and John Cooper; only Urban Meyer and Jim Tressel, with seven apiece, would remain ahead.

For now, though, the message inside the building is the same as the betting line outside it: don’t let up.