Though we're in the throes of a bye week, Urban Meyer and company still made time for post-practice interviews last night.
As you'd expect, as much as fans despise a fall weekend without Buckeye football, the players and coaches feel the bye comes at just the right time, following a physical battle against Wisconsin followed by a shootout with Northwestern on the road.
The coaches will be asked to do more than the players with the staff focused on hitting the recruiting trail. Meyer noted he also plans to take in a handful of his daughter's volleyball games down at Florida Gulf Coast.
Talking about the offense, Meyer and Tom Herman noted they'd love to use Dontre Wilson more but that the kid is still kind of a "novelty" because he's too one-dimensional. Until he fully learns multiple positions and how to block effectively, opponents know to key on him when he checks into the game.
Even as a novelty, I'm still amazed the burner has just 26 touches from scrimmage (15 rush, 11 pass) with only one touchdown.
Instead of taking an extra week to prep for the battle with the B1G's three-time Coach of the Year, Herman shared the bulk of his week will focus on self-scouting:
"We're six games in. We have a week to kind of take a deep breath. What are we good at? What aren't we good at? Where do we need to get better? What do we need to enhance and keep doing?"
Answering those questions by looking at the tape should be a lot easier for Herman and his fellow offensive staffers in comparison to his counterparts on the defensive side of the ball, especially those responsible for the play of the back seven.
Up front, the retooled defensive line continued its steady season holding Northwestern to 94 yards on the ground on 2.2 yards per carry. For the season, the Buckeyes sport the nation's 7th-best rush defense, giving up just over 86 yards per game.
True frosh Joey Bosa, despite being more of a pass rusher than a run stopper, has been right in the middle of things, so much so that Meyer projects Bosa's future at Ohio State as "silly". Looking at the numbers, Bosa ranks 2nd amongst his fellow defensive line mates with 16 tackles and 4.0 sacks while leading the entire defensive line with 12 solo stops.
Luke Fickell, also talking about the d-line, noted there's a "good chance" Tommy Schutt will return to action against Iowa after breaking his foot late in fall camp. Before the injury, Schutt was in the rotation as a backup nose guard and tackle, and with the issues in the back seven, the more the merrier as the defensive line will be counted on to create more pressure without the aid of a blitz while continuing their solid work against the run. Fickell also noted Adolphus Washington should be able to go against the Hawkeyes after tweaking his ankle in the heather grass at Ryan Field.
In the secondary, I have to say I was a bit surprised to see that Meyer thought Pittsburgh Brown "played well" against Northwestern although I was encouraged to hear he wants to see more of Vonn Bell, along with Tyvis Powell in the game plan. I was also glad to hear Fickell say a chief concern for the defensive staff is how teams have hurt Ohio State in situations where the Buckeyes have dropped eight in coverage. Maybe that means they'll abandon that strategy altogether except for extreme Prevent circumstances.
Finally, with the players getting the weekend off, Meyer noted everyone will have to weigh in on Monday at 6am and he's set the expectation that everyone better mind their P's and Q's:
"Some people see a bye week, they go act like a jerk over the weekend. Football is a tough, violent, contact sport. So your joints and your shoulders and everything need a break. That's what it's for. But to come back (out of shape) and not at least watch some football, that'd be a disgrace. And I'd have a real problem with that.
I have a feeing he won't be receiving any calls from the po-po in the middle of the night this weekend.
PSA: OSU basketball tips off in exactly 30 days
BUCKEYES REPORTEDLY ADD HA-WHY-II. Multiple media outlets reported last night that the Ohio State football Buckeyes have added the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors to the 2015 schedule.
News leaked as far back as June that a potential date with Hawaii was on the horizon what with Ohio State seeking to fill holes in a '15 non-conference slate that currently features a Labor Day tilt in Blacksburg followed by Northern Illinois in the Shoe. There's been much chatter that Northern Illinois is looking to bail on the matchup leaving the Buckeyes with plenty of holes to fill.
The matchup with Hawaii was also pushed along thanks to the strong relationship between Gene Smith and Ben Jay, Hawaii's current athletic director and former Senior Associate Athletics Director for Finance and Operations at Ohio State.
I've always been told Jay is a class act and I'm delighted OSU was able to throw him a bone though the tilt will do nothing but hurt Ohio State's strength of schedule. The good news is, hopefully, that the Hokies will be a top 20 squad and the Buckeyes will get bonus points for beating them on the road (should they win, of course).
If you are unfamiliar with the Rainbow Warriors, they are off to an 0-5 start this season and are just 3-14 since Norm Chow took over. In the most recent Sagarin Ratings, they sit 132nd, sandwiched between Richmond and Fordham.
At least by then, the College Football Playoff will be in place and Ohio State will just have to be one of the four best teams in the country to earn a shot at the crystal.
CFB PLAYOFF COMMITTEE ANNOUNCEMENT COMING SOON. Brett McMurphy's sources are at it again, notifying him the the College Football Playoff Committee members will be announced next week.
It sounds as if Bill Hancock and company have decided on 13 names members including Barry Alvarez, Mike Gould, Pat Haden, Tom Jernstedt, Jeff Long, Oliver Luck, Archie Manning, Tom Osborne, Dan Radakovich, Condoleezza Rice, Mike Tranghese, Steve Wieberg and Tyrone Willingham.
Thus far, all the hype and controversy regarding the committee has largely centered on the appointment of Rice, you know, cuz she's not a man and all. Of all the ill-informed statements regarding her selection, I think Pat Dye's thoughts still reign supreme:
"All she knows about football is what somebody told her. Or what she read in a book, or what she saw on television. To understand football, you've got to play with your hand in the dirt."
Personally, I have no issue with having a person like Rice on the panel simply because the exercise of deciding the four best college football teams that should be invited the playoff should be about breaking down the accomplishments of each team and deciding how those stack up against the resumes of other top teams.
As Dan Wetzel noted earlier this week, it's not really about trying to project who would beat whom on a neutral field, it's about digging into each team's body of work over the course of an entire season in an effort to determine which four teams are the most deserving of a chance to play for a national title, just like the NCAA's basketball selection committee has gone about its business for decades.
Of course, what would also be helpful in building public trust would be for Hancock and company to share as much concrete information as possible regarding the criteria and potentially the weighting they might place on one particular stat/metric/accomplishment over another.
Though that goodwill would be further enhanced by actually informing the public of the how and why teams rank as they do throughout the course of the season though its been previously reported there are no such plans to do so.
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