As Ohio State enters its final week of spring drills, head coach Urban Meyer provided updates to the media for the first time in nearly two weeks Monday. The Buckeyes hold their annual Scarlet and Gray scrimmage Saturday at Ohio Stadium, with kickoff scheduled for 1:30 p.m.
- Meyer, mocking the lack of media members present Monday: "The crowds are thinning out. Practice No. 12, spring ball must not very interesting. And I agree with you."
- On the quarterback snaps for Saturday's Spring Game, Meyer said he feels like Ohio State is exactly where it needs to be. He is surprised at how far ahead J.T. Barrett is recovering from ankle surgery.
- Meyer said Cardale Jones and Stephen Collier will take the bulk of the reps Saturday. J.T. Barrett and Braxton Miller cannot play.
- Meyer: "I don't know who our quarterback is going to be (this fall)." Did add that figuring out how to manage that situation and the sideline for this fall are "Aug. 15-type questions."
- Meyer said Barrett's actually been able to work in some 2-minute drills during practice as a result of how far ahead he is with his rehab.
- Again reiterating his trust for Miller, Meyer said the quarterback has continued reassuring him that rehabilitation on his shoulder is going well. Meyer said he's not been given a date for Miller's return.
- Meyer said he isn't a fan of doing a camp at a satellite location, like Michigan and Penn State have scheduled for this summer: "If we do it, we're not going to do it because some other schools are."
- Meyer said they've had conversations about doing a satellite camp, but nothing is finalized right now. He added that he thinks the NCAA should outlaw doing the camps: "I think you should just recruit on your campus."
- With a bevy of prospective contributors on offense heading into this season, Meyer said he and his staff had to go get more of them in order to achieve the spread offense he wanted. He made it clear that it's not like he didn't like the players he had on the 2012 offense, but they just didn't have the skills that he wanted for his offense specifically.
- Curtis Samuel, Noah Brown, Bri'onte Dunn are three names Meyer mentioned as guys on offense who's made a great jump this spring. Meyer mistakenly called Brown Noah Spence, before getting corrected by a team spokesman.
- As far as defensively, Meyer mentioned Sam Hubbard as someone who's caught his eye this spring. He's also been impressed with the way Eli Apple and Vonn Bell have ratcheted up their practice habits.
- On the Jamel Dean situation, Meyer said he was "disappointed" that Ohio State couldn't figure things out with him: "We were crushed when we found out he was DQ'd ... I was shocked."
- Meyer said he didn't understand why people are making the Dean situation out to be about scholarship numbers: "Somebody said something about [scholarship] numbers. I’m not sure where that came from. It was Jan. 12." Meyer added that he would give the Ohio State support staff "an A-plus" as far as handling it.
- Meyer said Chase Farris is the starting right tackle at Ohio State, as long as he continues to progress forward.
- Tyquan Lewis is missing time with an injury, but is the starter at defensive end opposite Joey Bosa when he returns healthy. Tommy Schutt is the starting defensive tackle next to Adolphus Washington and Noah Brwon is at wide receiver, as of right now.
- Joel Hale is out 4-5 weeks with a calf tear, Meyer said.
- Meyer said he used to speak with Florida men's basketball coach Billy Donovan about "winning after winning."
- He also said he's spoken to Lou Holtz about coming back again from winning a national championship: "What we can't have is resistance, we can't have speed bumps ... the culture is very clear. Now its just our coaches job to make sure we stay there."
- Meyer said he is looking forward to seeing how guys like Erick Smith, Cam Burrows, Parris Campbell and other young players react at Ohio Stadium Saturday.
- "I think he should be the best D-lineman in America," Meyer on Bosa. He said Bosa's relationship with Larry Johnson is helping push him over the edge even further.
- An Ohio State spokesman said "about 45,000" tickets have been sold for Saturday's Spring Game
