COLUMBUS — Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer met with reporters on Monday to provide some updates on his football team. He announced Champions and Players of the Game, provided personnel and injury updates, talked about what he liked and didn’t like from the win over Michigan State, and looked ahead a bit to Saturday’s game against Maryland. Here are the highlights.
+ Meyer went through the Champions and Players of the Game.
+ J.K. Dobbins ran really, really hard in grading out a Champion. This may have been Mike Weber’s best game. Meyer said if he has another child, he’s going to name him after Terry McLaurin.
+ Justin Hilliard is a monster on special teams.
+ There probably won’t be a shakeup on the offensive line, but they can play better. “It’s not exactly where we need to be.” Michael Jordan plays very well at times. He works his tail off, but it has been a little bit of a transition for him.
+ There isn’t that much of a difference running out of the pistol or shotgun.
+ Dwayne Haskins is still developing. His numbers may be dropping a bit, but MSU has a legitimate defense. His development has been very good.
+ Meyer is concerned about Michael Jordan’s snaps and the issues he has had. They are going to continue to work really hard at getting better at it. Jordan was snapping yesterday.
+ People being unhappy with where the Buckeyes are right now is a product of the program and the success they have had. “I get it. I don’t think we’ve played great either at times.” But the win over Michigan State at MSU was a big win. It’s tough to beat them. OSU isn’t playing great, but there are good moments. “It was a great team win.”
+ Maryland is one of the more talented teams in the Big Ten and Meyer has explained that to his players so they aren’t looking ahead to the Michigan game.
+ Tuf had a great day. The starting linebackers all graded at 90%. Baron Browning is probable for this week after missing last week due to injury.
+ Meyer just wanted his running backs to run harder and so he emphasized it and it has been productive the last two weeks in the fourth quarter of the last two games. Tony Alford has done a great job with them getting them ready for November.
+ This was one of their better days regarding the number of missed tackles. Maryland will be a bigger challenge because of their skill players.
+ Meyer sees Tate Martell’s role expanding as the season continues. He’s an elite competitor. Martell does it in practice, which is why they had the confidence to play him on Saturday.
+ Brendon White has brought a spark to the defense, Meyer has seen it, and he is tackling well.
+ Asked about Zach Smith’s tweeting, Meyer said he has moved on.
+ Saturday’s win was a big win, but he doesn’t know if it will be galvanizing like the 2012 or 2014 wins. They are in game-prep mode, so he’s not sure, but food tastes better.
+ He has spoke with former Maryland coach D.J. Durkin following his firing. Durkin was an assistant under Meyer at Florida.
+ It is rare to have a guy like Brendon White come into the lineup this late in the season and have an impact like he has.
+ What makes a good gunner? 1) Unselfish; 2) Understanding of the plan to win and an appreciation of it; 3) You have to be intelligent, fast, and tough. “I should have a gunner wall because those are my guys. Don’t mess with them. Those are my peoples. I can talk about those guys all day if you want.”
Lordy…I believe UM speaks as if he is addressing absolute mental midgets..”not much different running out of shotgun or the pistol”…It is MUCH more effective to RUN out of the pistol..the back is already moving in a forward motion before handoff, rather than just taking the ball from a standing position. Of course neither work when the O line whiffs on blocks, and RB is met in the backfield. We have a QB that can run Meyer’s offense…his name is Tate Martell..Joe is gone ,so run with whatcha brung. he HAS to get this kid in at least 4 or 5 meaningful series a game to mix things up.. D Haskins can not function with any pressure, so let this kid play and try to spark some momentum. If he fails, so what, would it really be any worse than the poor play calling,execution , 3 and outs, that we have witnessed all year? And “Justin Hilliard is a monster on special teams”…how about letting him be a “monster” at LB…Pete Werner can not play at this level…PERIOD…he is so out of his element that it is laughable…I guarantee that Hilliard, if given the same chance in the game, would play 100% better than Werner….for some reason, UM loves this kid…must be son of a good friend…and we all know how that story goes…loyalty to a fault. It was a nice victory over MSU, however, reality is, there was NOT much improvement and based on what i witnessed, we are not prepared for what TTUN is going to give us…the Defense is going to eat our O line alive and Haskins is going to get hit every play and we won’t be able to stop it…so be happy now about the win, but don’t buy into the notion that we are any better.
Great post
My friend @James Mills has it correct….Joe Burrow was the better option to run the Ohio State Offense. Burrow is not afraid to run and has the speed/toughness to take a hit. Maybe Haskins ought to wear a skirt so they won’t hit him.
Today’s stupid post of the day folks.
JK ran really really hard? 2 yards a carry. Minus the 8 yard rum he averaged 1.5 ypc on 13 carries. Maybe he’s just having a sophomore slump? Mike Weber is the better tailback. He has put the ball on the ground 3 times this year, but he’s still a MUCH more physical runner and finds a way to gain at least respectable ypc when he’s not sitting in someones timeout box.
I’ll continue to say it. Michael Jordan is an awful choice for center. Because he moved to center the entire offensive line has been compromised, and the left side is flat out horrible.
We must be seeing different linebackers on the field. Tuf Borland is playing on a bum wheel and it shows remarkably negative. Pete Werner simply DOES NOT belong on the field. Too weak, too lost in assignment and always confused.
J.K. is more consistent than Weber, James. Mike can disappear for entire games but Dobbins’ effort is consistent, if not the production. Most of Weber’s yards came late in the game, before that he was nearly as ineffective as Dobbins.
We agree that if Michael Jordan was/is the best choice at center then we should have cloned Billy Price before he left.
Borland is playing hurt, but he’s still playing reasonably well – considering the alternatives. One thing I’m not liking in his play of late is earlier in the season he was showing a great knack for causing fumbles and that appears to have dried up. Would love to see him punch one for Higdon in 2 weeks.
He disappears because that’s where the staff wants him. Lost somewhere behind the bench. They do the same with linebackers, quarterbacks and pizza deliverers that they take a disliking to.
JK’s production this year has been consistently somewhere between meh, and big deal. I remember back to Lydell Ross. His 4.6 ypc had the Buckeye Nation ready to stone him at the gates. JK is averaging 4.5 ypc. He has exactly 1 yard more than Mike Weber………..on 30 more carries than Mike has gotten, and Mike is still averaging a pretty respectable 5.6 ypc. I’m attributing that to a sophomore slump for JK Dobbins.
NOBODY on planet earth will ever convince me that an achilles injured Tuf Borland is a better option than the talent on the Buckeye roster. Hilliard could very well be a better option even if Tuf wasn’t hurt. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the beholder is a guy no pop warner league team would hire to teach linebackers. The guy sucks and there’s just no getting around it. He got his gig in the NFL because of his dads name, having never taught anyone anything about a football field. The Eagles dumped him and they immediately had a 100% upgrade in linebacker productivity. Nobody in the Buckeye linebacking unit has logged even an average linebacking season. They’ve been bad, and we’re about to see if Saturday’s performance against one of the worst offenses in CFB was fools gold, or if scheme adjustments did actually help. Maryland has 2 outstanding tailbacks and a quarterback who has some wheels.
I’m like everyone else and would LOVE for the glaring issues to be a thing of the past, but I’m not buying it yet. A quarterback on defense who is obviously injured, and a quarterback on offense who’s afraid of his own shadow.
Regardless of what happens against Maryland, that meeting on the 24th will be a war regardless.
Oh, and I STILL believe that Joe Burrow was the better option to run the Ohio State offense.
Oh, and I still believe that you have no clue what you are talking about. You are a pretend OSU coach who knows nothing more than the rest of us… thus your opinion means as little as mine.
You are on a hot streak, Allen! Your opinion DOES mean “little”. You are a passive aggressive twit who fits in quite well with an entire generation of non-thinkers. Awesome outlook for the future! Yikes…