COLUMBUS — Following Ohio State’s 49-26 win over Indiana, Buckeye head coach Urban Meyer spoke with reporters. Also taking some time out to talk to the media were Dwayne Haskins, Johnnie Dixon, and many others. Plenty was said by many, but here’s a good look at the highlights conveyed after the win.
Urban Meyer
+ Dwayne Haskins was “great” and “incredible.”
+ The Buckeyes still aren’t doing what needs to be done in the running game. Meyer called it “alarming.”
+ The defense was not what the Buckeyes needed in the first half. The pass rush wasn’t good.
+ If they give Haskins time, with his receivers he is a dangerous player.
+ Asked if this was a championship-caliber defense, Meyer said they’re not thinking about that right now, but he sees what you see.
+ “I trust our staff, I trust our players.”
+ Asked if it was time to endorse Dwayne Haskins for the Heisman, Meyer said he doesn’t know who else is out there and they’re worried about Minnesota right now, but they won’t hold him back from it.
+ They have talked about possible changes on defense. They always talk about what they should be doing and what would be best.
+ Malik Harrison and Jonathon Cooper are still being evaluated.
+ If people want to consider this a bad performance and the Buckeyes still won the way they did, that’s pretty good.
Dwayne Haskins
+ He has a dynamic group of receivers.
+ The team was probably still a bit tired from last week’s game.
+ Which of his six touchdowns was his favorite? “All of them are my favorites.”
+ Indiana blitzed a lot today.
+ Every game you want to light up the scoreboard, but it’s more important to simply get the win.
+ It didn’t feel like one of their best games.
+ There was a lot of 5-man and 6-man pressure, which made it difficult to run the ball.
Terry McLaurin
+ McLaurin doesn’t know many of the Indiana players. He’s been out of the state for five years now.
+ Indiana didn’t play their best, but neither did Ohio State.
+ They had to speed up the routes in the second half to get the ball thrown quicker.
+ Having a quarterback as talented as Haskins makes things harder and easier for the receivers. They need to be more precise in everything they do because Haskins will be precise.
+ McLaurin is biased, but he likes Haskins for the Heisman.
+ While he didn’t have any blocks where he took three guys out today, he did have two knockdowns on defensive ends.
Dre’Mont Jones
+ Jones is playing in pain with a nagging foot, but he’s not ready for the bye week. He wants to keep playing.
Johnnie Dixon
+ It would have been nice to have Haskins set the passing record.
+ Dixon doesn’t think that will be Haskins’ last 400-yard game of the year.
Shefield is a track man. not a football player. He holds or interferes on 80% of the plays. For somebody to get beat as bad as he did on that little slant in the end zone, that is pathetic.
If “Indiana didn’t play their best” then the Buckeyes have problems. It is as Urban said, “alarming”. Better take off the rose colored glasses regarding the running game, the offensive line, the defense, and the number of penalties. A championship defense, lol? What a stupid question. Urban said he “sees what you see”, which are some holes in the ship that need to be fixed and at this point the Buckeyes need to be thinking only of the Minnesota game and not about the Heisman or playoffs. Indiana played a good first half and further exposed OSU’s shortcomings and thus did everybody a favor. They’ve got plenty of work to do and fans should not take too much comfort in beating up on one of the humblest programs in the conference in the second half after allowing them to dominate the scoreboard for as long as they did. We’ve seen it happen several times and OSU will do well this year to get a Big 10 championship. When that happens call me about playoffs and individual awards.
“Indiana played a good first half and further exposed OSU’s shortcomings and thus did everybody a favor.”
Everybody except for the overpaid coaching staff, I meant.
All i know is that i am soooooo tired of being lied to by our coach. All during summer he speaks of how these players are progressing and they are going to be ELITE. Fall camp rolls around and these players are ELITE. Come Saturday, these ELITE player can not play. Week after week they make the same mistakes. They can’t cover anyone, they can’t tackle, they can’t take the right angles to make plays, they can’t get off blocks, they can’t play the ball in the air ,so they grab or interfere with the receiver.These defensive players look completely lost most of the time. Then OUR coach says he is aware and changes may come, next game same players even more mistakes. Same garbage in-garbage out process. Coach–its broke….fix the damn problem before its too late. I watch other teams with “less talented” (not 4&5 stars} that can play their positions as they are supposed to, and it is frustrating to watch..Maybe instead of recruiting track stars, we should recruit football players that can play..mainly we need a fresh look at our defensive system and make changes there…… starting with coaching, because clearly we are deficient there. We can’t develop defensive players in the back half (respect to Larry Johnson)..I watched that whole game in horrors seemingly every play we were misaligned right from start of play and as play progress, gaps everywhere , players all bunched, way out of position to do anything. Missed tackles,and so on and so on. This is not even close to a middle of the road defense.Period This is not an OHIO STATE defense. This look like a high school defense and i am being kind.
Schiano has outlived his usefulness. His defense sucks.
This defense is desperately missing the LB coaching of Luke Fickell, and the DB coaching of Kerry Combs. Since Fickell has been gone it seems our LB’s just don’t improve year to year. These are 4 and 5 star players so it shouldn’t be an issue of physical ability.
The lack of solid tackling this year has directly led to many of the big plays.This is a great team but if you want to challenge for championships, this defense is not ready.
I bet the one thing that frustrated Meyer the most was truth and one and they didn’t get it. They still don’t have a jumbo package and they probably wont. It will cost them big down the road. The DB’s defend the deep ball as if they never see it in practice. They seem.to get a little better as the game progresses but not much. Still a very young team everywhere. It was nice to see us pull away in the fourth but it was tense.
Dear Urban. Your muffler……….fix it. Better expressed as, Hey Urban……..your defense sucks………fix it.
Yes, the Buckeyes scored 49 points and racked up 600+ yards of offense.
BUT, why do they have a large amount of missed tackles, opposing receivers beating Buckeye coverage deep, a continuing parade of penalties including holding calls on two successive plays ??? I have never coached a minute of high school or college football. So, my opinion is not worth much. However, as a fan it is frustrating to watch these issues occur week after week.
More frustrating to hear multimillion dollar coaches make excuses week after week. If say you are going to fix it – then fix it. Successful leadership comes from the top down. Coaches are ultimately responsible for preparation and execution. Pull the player if he isn’t getting it. Defense looked lost for significant parts of the game. Scheme too complex? Bad reads? Players out of position? Poor tackling and pursuit angles. All coachable.