Ohio State coach Urban Meyer often spends the majority of his Monday press conference fielding questions about the Buckeyes' next game and their upcoming opponent.
That wasn't the case this Monday.
Meyer wasn't asked many questions on Monday about his team's preparation for Army, who the Buckeyes play at 4:30 p.m. Saturday. Instead, he spent his press conference fielding questions about what went wrong in Saturday's 31-16 loss to Oklahoma, and where the Buckeyes go from here.
A number of the questions centered about Ohio State's quarterback, J.T. Barrett, and whether Meyer is concerned about Barrett's play through the first two games of the season. Meyer reiterated, though, that he has no plans to make a change at the position right now.
"It's not even a question," Meyer said in regards to Barrett being the quarterback that gives Ohio State the best chance to win. Meyer says Barrett remains well ahead of the other quarterbacks with his performance on the practice field and in terms of being "game ready."
A sampling, in bullet points, of what else Meyer said during his question-and-answer with the media on Monday:
- The Buckeyes are "somewhere between pissed and moving forward" in the process of dealing with Saturday's loss emotionally.
- Ohio State would like to get the other quarterbacks some playing time when the opportunity presents itself, but Meyer says that opportunity hasn't presented itself yet.
- The players who gives the team the best chance to win will play, regardless of position – quarterback, right guard, etc.
- Meyer said his defense tried to do too much at times against Baker Mayfield, which left players out of position and susceptible to allowing big plays.
- "The secondary did not play very well."
- "There's some guys that didn't play very well" against Oklahoma, but Meyer said he isn't going to point the finger of blame at anyone publicly. "The B word doesn't come out."
- Meyer said he was "made aware" of Micah Parsons' tweet criticizing J.T. Barrett (without addressing the situation by name, as he is not allowed to) but did not elaborate further on whether that would affect Ohio State's recruiting situation with him.
- Ohio State mostly practices in man coverage, while defenses have played zone coverage against the Buckeyes in the first two games, so the Buckeyes need to spend more time working on that in practice.
- Meyer still wants to see that Dwayne Haskins is "game ready" before he puts the quarterback in a game with a game on the line.
- Austin Mack suffered a head injury on Saturday. "Feeling much better today." Ohio State being cautious with him, but expects him to play on Saturday.
- Mike Weber is "still not quite 100 percent" as he recovers from his hamstring injury.
- Ideally, Ohio State's running backs should see 25-30 carries per game. The running backs only had 16 carries on Saturday. "That's not enough."
- Meyer is still confident in Ohio State's six-man rotation at wide receiver, but added "there is not that Michael Thomas that you go to all the time."
- Offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson will "continue to have the opportunity" to "enhance" Ohio State's offense.
Check back with Eleven Warriors this afternoon for additional coverage from Meyer's press conference.
