J.T. Barrett walked out of the Ohio State locker room Saturday night donning a red Ohio State shirt and a black backpack. After making his way down a short flight of stairs, the Buckeyes’ quarterback stopped briefly to speak with reporters — this is customary for a player of Barrett’s stature — and was asked an abundance of questions about the events that had just transpired in the hours prior.
Ohio State had dismantled a then-14th-ranked Oklahoma team and racked up 443 yards of total offense in the process. Barrett threw four touchdown passes himself — all to Noah Brown — and accounted for 226 of those yards: 152 passing, 74 rushing.
Barrett spoke about his connection with Brown, the Buckeyes’ ability to run the ball successfully against a stout Sooners front and much more. Then, he paused after giving a number of answers and delivered an important message.
“I think we’re in a good place coming into the bye week and we just want to keep on preparing and getting better,” Barrett said. “We’re not where we want to be, obviously. The second half we had struggles on offense, same thing defense and even on special teams.
“We’re just continuing to keep on getting better. I think we’re at a good place right now but there’s room for improvement.”
It’s always about what comes next for Barrett and for Ohio State.
And that’s precisely why Buckeyes head coach Urban Meyer is constantly pushing for the Buckeyes' signal caller to get better despite the tremendous amount of success Barrett has had over his career and through the first three games of this season.
When speaking on the Big Ten coaches weekly teleconference Tuesday, Meyer addressed some areas in which he feels Barrett still needs to improve.
“Obviously, you have to take care of the ball but just put your offense in manageable, on schedule situations and J.T. is phenomenal at that.”– Urban Meyer
“There were times in the game where he tried to do too much,” Meyer said. “There were a couple reads that he got a little aggressive with, which I don’t mind him doing once in awhile, but he does his best when he does the proper reads and distributes the ball where he needs to put it.”
Barrett was 14-for-20 passing for 152 yards with the four touchdowns in Ohio State’s 42-24 rout of the Sooners. He also carried the ball 17 times for 74 yards.
For the season, the redshirt junior is completing 67.1 percent of his passes — second in the Big Ten — and has thrown for 650 yards and 10 touchdowns against just one interception. The Buckeyes’ offense is seemingly humming on all cylinders averaging 56.7 points per game (third nationally) while committing just two turnovers, which is tied for eighth-fewest in FBS.
Meyer gives a lot of the credit for that success to Barrett.
“What he’s doing great now is we are very rarely off schedule,” Meyer said. “If something happens, a penalty, a loss-yardage play, we’ll call a play and he’ll get us back to third and manageable. That’s kind of his forte and of all the things great quarterbacks do I’d put that up there as one of the most important things.
“Obviously, you have to take care of the ball but just put your offense in manageable, on schedule situations and J.T. is phenomenal at that.”
Still, Meyer is challenging Barrett to continue to improve as Ohio State hopes to return to the Big Ten championship game and, ultimately, the College Football Playoff. He points to the 11 penalties in Saturday’s win over Oklahoma — a large portion of which came when the Buckeyes’ offense couldn’t get lined up properly — and how his team had to burn timeouts early in the first half because of some miscommunication.
Because as we’ve said all along with this year’s Ohio State team: It goes as J.T. Barrett does.
“We just want to keep on getting better as Buckeyes,” Barrett said. “Love our team and we love playing for each other.”
