One could almost sense what Urban Meyer was about to say.
Ohio State’s head coach was at the podium for his usual Monday press conference. His team set a school record with 776 yards of total offense just two days prior in the season-opener, a 77-10 obliteration of visiting Bowling Green, but you could essentially feel Meyer’s upcoming comments before he actually said them.
“I think it was good,” Meyer said when asked his assessment after reviewing the game film. “It wasn’t great.”
"Good, not great" after a 67-point win? Sounds about right.
This was surely a calculated move by Meyer, a master of motivation. What better way to bring a team that just scored 77 points back down to earth than tell a group of reporters the performance was essentially average?
Meyer knows what he’s doing, of course. He has been in this business long enough and coached all different types of teams. He certainly knows what buttons to push with certain groups.
This was no different. Meyer knows he has a young, inexperienced team — the majority of which saw its first real collegiate game action Saturday — and to build them up after what was actually a strong performance could create a problem. Never let a team get too comfortable.
“I would not take anything more than the guys played pretty good. We’ve got a tough one coming up this week, a team that beat San Jose [State] soundly from the get-go.”– Urban Meyer
Meyer knows what looms ahead next weekend, too, and he also knows how important it is for the Buckeyes not to take a step backward the week before they play at 14th-ranked Oklahoma. Progress this week is necessary.
“We had a good day [against Bowling Green], but there was still things we could improve on,” Ohio State quarterback J.T. Barrett said.
How is progress defined, though? There’s a number of different ways to answer that.
The Buckeyes can still show offensive progress even if they don’t hang 77 points and 776 yards of offense on the Golden Hurricane. For starters, Ohio State had nine penalties in the win over the Falcons and six of those came against the offense. In particular, the offensive line had four penalties itself — three false starts and one holding.
“Obviously, when you only have one guy grade champion, they didn’t play very good,” Meyer said of the offensive line. “They have to get much better.”
Defensively, the Buckeyes played a strong game overall in limiting Bowling Green to just 244 yards of total offense. But Meyer was quick to point out Tulsa should test the Ohio State defense more than the Falcons; the Golden Hurricane have an experienced quarterback and two wide receivers Meyer deemed NFL prospects.
So yes, things can get better even if the score at the end of the game is closer.
That’s what’s most important for Ohio State this week in another game it’s heavily favored to win. There’s a big game looming in Norman next weekend and the Buckeyes can’t afford to take a step back this week against Tulsa.
Meyer knows that, and he’s doing whatever he can to make sure that doesn’t happen.
“I would not take anything more than the guys played pretty good,” Meyer said. “We’ve got a tough one coming up this week, a team that beat San Jose [State] soundly from the get-go.”
