When a highly rated football recruit signs his name on the dotted line of his Letter of Intent, inking and setting in stone his declaration to play the game for Ohio State and Urban Meyer, a mad rush of entities instantly flies down the tunnel toward him.
Five-star facilities, upper-tier academic courses, a jam-packed Ohio Stadium and a career in the spotlight awaits those who saddle up regardless if they're a blue-chip recruit or two-star sleeper.
That collegiate football experience in Columbus, Ohio, allots with it the expectation — belief, even — that each and every time you and your teammates don the Scarlet and Gray Saturday afternoons, you will come out on the right side of the scoreboard when the clock reads zero.
"I think there’s an expectation when you come to Ohio State that you’re supposed to win every game you play in," senior left tackle Taylor Decker said Thursday in Chicago at Big Ten Media Days. "I think that can be dangerous."
"I think being the preseason No. 1 team can kind of spark some complacency and that can be dangerous. Obviously, you don’t want to forget what got you to where you’re at, you don’t want to forget what it feels like to not be on top or No. 1. You work a lot harder then than you probably ever will."– Taylor Decker
It certainly can be, because when you're told you're this great thing in the recruiting process and are needed in order to help take the program to another level, the hazardous feeling of complacency can creep into your skull. Working hard could turn into an afterthought. Believing that just showing up on Saturdays will win games could become the norm.
Ohio State will enter the 2015 season as the consensus No. 1 team in the country, with 15 starters returning from a team that ripped through the post-season to win the first ever College Football Playoff in January.
The Buckeyes toppled top-ranked Alabama and dispatched the Heisman Trophy winner, Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota, to secure their spot atop the college football's landscape. For how much they exerted to get to that point, it's going to take even more to stay there.
Ohio State is set to be without four starters in its season opener at Virginia Tech Sept. 7. All-American defensive end Joey Bosa, wide receiver Corey Smith and H-backs Jalin Marshall and Dontre Wilson must sit out after "violating a department issue" this summer, moves that could signal a change in the mindset among Meyer's players — a complacent change that wasn't there one year ago.
"Every coach is concerned about that. There's no perfect team. There's no perfect program. And everyone deals with stuff," Meyer said Thursday. "You know, when you're Ohio State or some of these other big-time programs, stuff becomes a major deal."
Keeping a stranglehold on 85-plus players during their summer vacation is something Meyer mainly turns over to strength coach Mickey Marotti, but as the head coach said, "stuff" pops up more often than not.
It's just he and his staff's job to make sure the "stuff" doesn't become a regular thing, particularly with such a talented team coming back and mountainous expectations awaiting it.
"I think being the preseason No. 1 team can kind of spark some complacency and that can be dangerous," Decker said. "Obviously, you don’t want to forget what got you to where you’re at, you don’t want to forget what it feels like to not be on top or No. 1. You work a lot harder then than you probably ever will."
Ohio State's players have said Marotti's offseason training regimen has been just as bad if not worse this summer than in year's past. Meyer's tried to keep a lid on the success the program enjoyed in 2014, putting forth every effort to close the book on it and start anew.
"There's an element of human nature on the way to the top, too, which you gotta fight. Either way you're going to have to find your way," senior linebacker Joshua Perry said Thursday. "It doesn't matter, if you start at the bottom there's human nature where you complain about things that aren't going your way."
Decker said it was Meyer's — and by extension Marotti's — intention to instill the idea that Ohio State was back down at the bottom of the totem pole on Day One of workouts for spring practice. That way, the strength coach can do his best at thwarting the towering expectations of repeating and running the table all while dealing with the idea that they might already be good enough to do so.
"He established that right away that we’re not gonna give you anything and nothing is gonna be easy just because of what you did last year," Decker said of Marotti. "That’s the old team, that’s gone and over with and done."
Meyer relies on Marotti to figure out the "pulse of the team," he says, particularly when it comes to three elements: Academics, the social aspect and weight room.
"I can't say we have a set way that we're going to approach training camp. It all depends on the pulse," Meyer said. "So the indicators other than (the suspensions) has been not good; it's been great. But tomorrow is another day. And so we just keep pushing forward."
There's no choice but to keep pushing forward, because as long as there are football players coming to Ohio State, there were be the assumptions of perfect seasons and national championships.
"I think it will be a lot more difficult because obviously expectations can cause a lot of pressure for people and it can make people lose sight of what got them there which can be totally dangerous," Decker said. "Through the offseason, since I’ve been in the locker room, I’ve been in those workouts, I have 100 percent confidence and I’m not really that worried about all the expectations looming around us."
