Last season, Ohio State played the underdog role and played it quite well. The Buckeyes embraced that challenge of not being expected to win three-straight games and rode it all the way to a national championship.
Ohio State opened a lot of eyes around the country with consecutive victories over Wisconsin, Alabama and Oregon. It got head coach Urban Meyer his much-sought-after third national title.
But in 2015, Ohio State isn't going to be fooling anybody. The Buckeyes will be going from the hunters to the hunted.
"You don’t want guys to be entitled to winning games," offensive tackle Taylor Decker said back during Ohio State's first week of spring practice. "There’s a reason we won games and a reason we had the season we did. There’s a culture that’s been building here and that’s what helped us have the season we did."
“You don’t want guys to be entitled to winning games. There’s a reason we won games and a reason we had the season we did. There’s a culture that’s been building here and that’s what helped us have the season we did.”– Taylor Decker
Ohio State is currently in the middle of its second week of spring practice as the defending national champions. The Buckeyes will work all the way up until their Spring Game on April 18.
It's often said staying atop the mountain is even more difficult than getting there. That's the challenge Ohio State is faced with. It's quite the opposite from where things were one season ago.
"The big challenges are just going to be keeping everybody on track in terms of your assignments, making sure we don’t get comfortable or making sure this doesn’t seem too mundane," Buckeyes linebacker Joshua Perry said. "The other is that we have a big target on our back so we have to make sure we get the most out of everything we do.”
The underdog role? You can likely throw that out. But make no mistake about it, Meyer is a master motivator and he will find something to instill in his team. He may just tell them they're the underdogs even when in reality they aren't. And his team will probably believe him.
"Right now, we're not into the motivation it's just about improving and as long as a player or program feels like it's getting better the motivation is going to be there. We're not trying to win a game yet," Meyer said. "We're not crossing that bridge at this time but that's going to be the essence of 2015. How do you somehow create that, with the leadership on your team, how do you create that?"
The battle with complacency is what the Buckeyes are dealing with. But Ohio State often refers to the culture it has created and the mindset it uses as to why it is so successful.
That's exactly what's going to help drive the Buckeyes as they march toward the painstaking task of trying to repeat as national champions.
"Complacent and entitled teams can be really, really bad," Meyer said. "A team that somehow has a chip on its shoulder like this team did is going to be the essence of the season."
