BOOM
2025 cornerback Jordyn Woods flips from Cincinnati and commits to Ohio State.
A question about Dante Booker's option to potentially take a medical redshirt due to his knee injury. Inquiries on former assistant, friend and current Maryland coach D.J. Durkin and if he could help provide additional insight before Ohio State plays Michigan. A query on the imminent Presidential election. Questions about the boost in recruiting the program felt with so many top prospects in attendance for his team's 59-point drubbing of Nebraska.
Urban Meyer answered them all the same way.
“Beat Maryland,” Ohio State's head coach said on Monday.
Meyer's Buckeyes are two days removed from their most dominant and complete performance of 2016. Nebraska didn't stand a chance after Tommy Armstrong Jr.'s pick-six on the opening drive shifted momentum in Ohio State's favor and added more fuel to the fire that burned beneath an already raucous crowd.
Ohio State won't play in front of that same crowd this weekend at Maryland but that doesn't mean it can't prepare to play a much less talented Terrapin team any differently than it did a week prior. With a game against Michigan looming that will likely decide who wins the Big Ten East, welcome to Meyer's world for the next two weeks.
“A group of players made a decision to play very well, and now you can throw that one away if you don't follow up with another good week of practice and preparation,” Meyer said. “That's been the message, to a degree.”
“When that game comes, that game will come. But we have to take care of what we need to take care of before we get there.”– Jamarco Jones on Michigan
Aside from a few screw ups like Dontre Wilson's muffed punt or the drive that Ohio State's defense allowed a field goal to the Cornhuskers—which was aided by a pass tipped by a receiver and caught by another—the Buckeyes put together as close to a perfect performance Meyer could have wanted on Saturday. As such, 28 players graded out as champions.
That is the expectation regardless who the team plays, even if it is the 5-4 Terrapins or a Michigan State team next weekend that still doesn't have a Big Ten victory this year.
“Coach Meyer does a really good job of making sure we focus on each opponent. We can't look past anybody,” left tackle Jamarco Jones said. “Especially because we've already taken a loss this year. Just shows you that you can't look past anybody.”
Jones didn't mean Ohio State looked past Penn State last month when it lost 24-21 despite entering the final quarter with a two-score advantage. State College is a tough venue to earn a win, and weird things happen there at night under the Beaver Stadium lights. But as we know, the loss made Ohio State's margin for error zero if it wishes to win the conference and return to the College Football Playoff.
A head-scratching loss either to Meyer's old cohort Durkin and Maryland or nemesis Mark Dantonio and Michigan State prevents that. Which is why Ohio State's coach wants to see nothing but the same level of intensity and preparation from everyone under him at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center this week. Even after an explosion like the one on Saturday night.
“I've done this a long time, and I've coached young teams, and this is a steady climb that we were climbing very good early in the season; we plateaued and you gotta somehow jump start it and get the climb started again in development of the players and development of the team,” Meyer said. “And I felt like obviously, we plateaued, but I see what I see at practice and that's the advantage I have over everybody here is I see—if I thought there was team chemistry issues and give in, then that's—then you implode. It wasn't that at all.
“It's just coaches gotta do a better job, players gotta do a better job and they did.”
That became apparent early and often against Nebraska. It looked like Ohio State found the magic that helped it scream to a 3-0 start this season where it averaged 56 points and thumped a top-15 team in Oklahoma on the road.
Youth and a ton of new starters lacking experience are still within the walls in Columbus. But now that they know what can happen if all the pieces come together and prepare to the point where everything is clicking, the challenge is doing that once again. Even if it is against a pair of teams that sit in the bottom half of the Big Ten standings with a likely undefeated Michigan waiting the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
“Just understand that you have to take the same approach,” quarterback J.T. Barrett said. “I don't take any team for granted or see them as lesser because the Big Ten is one of the conferences now you could get snuck up on and get beat at any time. Understand the same approach that we took into a top-10 matchup against Nebraska is the same approach we need to take for Maryland on the road.”
“We're focused on Maryland. We're not really worried about [Michigan],” Jones said. “When that game comes, that game will come. But we have to take care of what we need to take care of before we get there.”
So while fans and others will focus on the outside noise that comes after a 62-3 victory and a presumed spot in the top-5 of the College Football Playoff rankings, Meyer is concerned about the one assured thing before the next thing. That way he and Ohio State can be in the right spot before the next thing: Michigan.
“I listen and I hear, and the heartbeat of our team is very solid right now. It's not always perfect, but it's very solid,” Meyer said. “And am I concerned about it, you're damn right. That's when you start having issues, but I also have great trust in the people that I'm listening to.”
