It's the beginning of August and Ohio State is just a few days into its 28 preseason practices before it takes the field in Bloomington, Indiana on Aug. 31.
Entering camp, the Buckeyes still have quite a few depth chart spots to fill including vacancies at the starting right guard, cornerback spot and safety positions as well as quite a few backup spots beginning with the quarterback position.
When it comes down to it, 28 practices is not a long time to evaluate players and piece together a depth chart, especially when you begin the season on the road against a conference opponent right before taking on what will likely be a top-10 team the following week. The Buckeyes have no gimme games to begin the season this time.
"We are not playing pre-season games," Urban Meyer said when discussing his team's preparation. "We are in the Big Ten Conference, game one. So sometimes I'll count those games as a chance to get guys ready. We don't have that luxury this year. This year, you're in it."
That in mind, evaluation has to start immediately, even during the first few practices. The problem is that during those initial practices, players are rusty from all the days off and tend to make mistakes, making evaluation difficult.
But Meyer has been around the game long enough to know that. So in the early days of practice, while he is indeed evaluating players, he's not looking for technical perfection. Instead, he's searching for a good culture and mentality.
"We're not looking for assignment expertise yet."– Urban Meyer
"It's all culture at this point," Meyer said. "It's the whole thing, the go-hard, because there are going to be plenty of mistakes."
More specifically, Meyer is focused on how players respond when things don't go according to plan. He's looking for players who revert back to their training when a play breaks down or circumstances work against them.
"The player that something good does not happen and he could go right back to fundamentals and all the training he's been through, those are guys that play," Meyer said. "That's what I look for now and all our coaches, as you start establishing depth charts."
Meyer said the team has its first scrimmage on Saturday, and following it, he and the rest of the coaching staff will start putting together an initial depth chart, and it will be finalized int he days that follow.
"So they have about ten days or whatever it is, to establish themselves, and that's what we're looking for," Meyer said. "We're not looking for assignment expertise yet."
The expertise and perfection will come, but for Meyer, culture is the prerequisite.
When the Buckeyes take on Indiana and Oklahoma in a few short weeks, Meyer doesn't want a player out there who's going to freeze up when things go awry – he wants a player that he can trust to make a play regardless of circumstance.
While it's too early to tell which players are ready to contribute technically, Meyer can already begin to see that culture taking shape in some, and absent in others. And that's where his evaluation begins.
