Urban Meyer spoke with the media on Monday to provide some updates on what went wrong against Oklahoma and how the team plans to respond moving forward. Here are the highlights.
+ We’ve had a couple of tough losses recently. You go from devastated to crushed to pissed. We’re somewhere between two and three right now, and their moving forward to fix the issues that caused the loss.
+ Army provides unique issues with their running game. Defensively, they play a 3-4 all over the place and play extremely hard. They beat Navy last year. He’s a big fan of the service academies.
+ This isn’t the first time there were issues with playcalling. It’s his job to step in and he tried, but a lot of times a head coach can screw things up more than they help. He tries to be conscientious of his playcallers.
+ There is more consideration to giving Joe Burrow or Dwayne Haskins some snaps in the game, but the opportunity hasn’t presented itself yet.
+ J.T. Barrett is much further ahead in practice than the other guys, and it’s not just throwing that goes into the decision. It’s getting the team into the right plays, leading, etc.
+ Kevin Wilson’s job is to enhance the offense and make it better. He’ll continue to get that opportunity.
+ Defensively, the back seven made too many eye mistakes and not focusing on their responsibilities. Guys were trying to do too much.
+ Playing Army this week has forced the defense to put last week’s game to bed because everything needs to be spent against the wishbone.
+ The secondary did not play very well across the board.
+ There are some guys that didn’t play particularly well on offense.
+ The evolution of defenses is constant. The OSU offense is constantly being re-evaluated to combat this.
+ If there are issues with older players who perform in practice but not in games, you have to move on.
+ “We’ve seen a lot of zone.” That is one of the negatives when you practice against man-to-man. They have given zone looks to the offense in practice, but not enough.
+ He was aware of a recruit (Micah Parsons) tweeting that Dwayne Haskins should be starting. He had his staff handle it.
+ Dwayne Haskins is not game ready yet. The third quarter of Oklahoma is not the right time to do that.
+ Part of the quarterback decision is the fact that J.T. Barrett is a three-time captain with tangibles and intangibles. “Absolutely they are in the equation.” It plays into his decision a lot, “and that’s with every position.”
+ Meyer thinks he has some receivers who can make plays if there aren’t guys doing it now. There isn’t a differentiation between one through six. There is somebody who can make plays. There isn’t a Michael Thomas who is your go-to guy.
+ Austin Mack is feeling much better today. They’ll know more tomorrow. He is probable after hitting his head on the turf.
+ Mike Weber isn’t 100% yet, but the carries between him and J.K. Dobbins last week were not enough. You want to be around 25-30 with them.
+ There is plenty of urgency with the programs. Players give coachspeak or playerspeak after the game because Meyer doesn’t want his players to put anything out there 20 minutes after a tough loss. “We don’t need headlines.”
+ Two or things can contribute to contagious errors. The first thing is a quality opponent. The second thing is if the coaches are putting the players in a position to succeed. “Can they done what we have done in the past.”
+ Meyer’s priority fixes with the offense are known to him and obvious, but he’s not going to share it with the media.
+ Meyer worries about J.T. Barrett’s confidence. He’s a mentally-tough guy and mature, but he’s got to play better and they have to coach better. He’s more worried about other players losing confidence, however, not Barrett.
+ Meyer believes there will be an evolution to doing things more of what Kevin Wilson does “if it fits” and if it flows well. There wasn’t much of a flow against Oklahoma. There will be a continual merging of ideas between Wilson, Ryan Day and Meyer.