IOWA CITY — The Buckeyes walked into Kinnick Stadium as 20-point favorites and left with a 31-point loss on the schedule. Following the 55-24 outcome, Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer spoke briefly with the media, as did senior center Billy Price and senior defensive end Tyquan Lewis. Here are the highlights.
Urban Meyer
+ Meyer did not see this coming. He said he had no idea how this happened.
+ It was bad turnovers and Iowa controlled the line of scrimmage.
+ The offense never got right once they started losing offensive linemen, and even when they came back it was never right.
+ Iowa’s defense “just played very well against us.”
+ The ejection on Nick Bosa had a big impact.
+ On J.T. Barrett’s four interceptions? “Ow.” The defense was baiting him, but that’s their coverage and that’s what they do.
+ On what he told the team after the game: “That’s between our team. That’s between us.”
+ Meyer was concerned coming into this game because he knows what Iowa is capable of. “Sure I was concerned. I didn’t see any signs.”
+ This was not about a lack of energy.
+ He didn’t have any answers for the defensive performances yet.
Billy Price
+ “Obviously a terrible feeling right now.”
+ “We just didn’t come in prepared today.”
+ At Ohio State they finish the game with class, even in a loss like this, and Price had to remind his team about that late in the game.
+ Accountability will be the key this week and there will be some very honest conversations this week.
+ They were looking for a spark, but just couldn’t find it.
+ Iowa’s defense didn’t do anything unexpected.
+ “We knew what they were going to do.”
+ “We took one on the chin.”
+ It’s difficult going from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows.
+ The Big Ten East is still in Ohio State’s control.
+ Winning the East has always been the No. 1 goal.
+ Should the Buckeyes have run the ball more? “I trust the coaches. My personal opinion doesn’t matter.”
+ Feels like this was about execution and not emotion.
Tyquan Lewis
+ You expect to go into every game and dominate. “Obviously it didn’t turn out that way.”
+ Being run on like this is like a punch to the gut.
+ “Nobody expected that on defense.”
+ Losing Bosa affected the game, but they have to have the next man step up.
+ “There’s a feeling of embarrassment. As a leader I feel like I let a lot of people down.”
+ The completed passes to the tight ends: “As a defensive line, that’s on us.”
+ It was a great week of practice. This was a blindside.
I still can’t believe how they just kicked our ass and this was a team that lost three B1G games albeit all to tough competition. Very disappointing that JT seemed to revert to his old mistakes when the going got tough. He held onto the ball too long, passed up open receivers, threw too late to covered receivers, and underthrew one wide open TD pass to McLauren. We also had some bad drops and questionable play calling. Why didn’t we throw downfield 50 % of the time? Instead of the dinks and dunks which Iowa had covered all the way. Second greatest problem was how our GREAT DEFENSE simply could not penetrate their offensive line and also was slow to tackle Wadley on seeps and off tackle plays.
I have no godly idea which team will show up Saturday against a very physical MSU team.
The only thing that concerns me is not going to 4 O’clock Mass on Saturday. I bet Urban is thinking the same!!
Last 12 plus months of OSU football is a pretty concerning trend. The sad thing was this was our best chance in 3 years to win a title given the talent on this team. Going to be a another rough 12 months or so as another 6 to 8 underclassmen defect for the NFL. Gonna be a long rest of this year and a long year next year.
My vote is we can this staff and hire Mark Diantonio. Look what he can do year after year with a fraction of Talent OSU has and he has more Big10 championships then Urban
Maybe this week your article can be “Too Late to Talk JT Barrett and Heisman?”
To T. Hadley: Although Saban hasn’t had a whipping like that at Alabama, he has had a lot worse in his career (and Meyer doesn’t have the years in that Saban does yet). Besides, Saban isn’t our coach and never will be. He’s built a great program….like USC under pete, OSU under woody, FSU under bobby, Army in the 40’s, etc, etc.
We just got outplayed. Defensively, our linebackers (2 of the 3) can’t get off the block, can’t stop the run, and can’t cover outlet passes. Other than that….
Offensively, JT is JT. I wouldn’t scrap this season, each team needs to learn to fight. It was obvious they left it on the field against PSU. Now, we get to see what coach can do to rebuild.
Name one time when a Saban coached Bama team lost to a mediocre (.500ish) team of 3 star players by 30 pts. So, I’m going to quote the 2012 Urban Meyer: “What have you done to beat Alabama today?” With Meyer’s current trend how long before the 4 & 5 star players begin to stop taking his calls? It will get really ugly when that happens. Perhaps Urbie should stop hiring his buddies and go after young innovators like he did with Tom Herman.
I’ll say it because no one else will. Very proud of Billy Price and Tyquan Lewis’ comments. Hurting like hell they still remember who they are.
Tyquan remains my favorite player on this team because he’s earned respect. He sucked it up and took responsibility. THAT is what leaders do.
Billy Price answered correctly by not saying we should have done this or that. It’s GOT to be difficult facing the media after such a vicious rear reaming. Hats off to him for looking people in the eye.
Pretty sad when the players handle the tough spot better than the 7 figure salary head coach. Meyer may as well have been clothed in a diaper sipping from a bottle during his commentary. What a jerk.
Oh, the comment about Nick Bosa’s ejection as having a “big impact” was wrong on Meyers’ part too. It didn’t have THAT much of an impact (unless he was on his way to a 20 sack game, that is). Nice try though, coach.