All of Urban Meyer's best teams were pissed off.
You can go back and look, or you can let me help with that.
Eleven years ago, Ohio State fans saw it firsthand on a fateful January night in Glendale, Arizona. The top-ranked and undefeated Buckeyes spent the better part of the previous month going to award ceremonies and hearing how unstoppable they were ahead of their BCS National Championship Game matchup with No. 2 Florida.
The angrier team (which entered the contest a 7.5-point underdog) won that night. By 27 points. And it wasn't even remotely that close.
That's because the lead up to the title game was so heavily slanted toward Ohio State. The Buckeyes had gone wire-to-wire during the regular season as the No. 1 team in the country and had defeated a pair of No. 2-ranked teams in Texas and Michigan.
Meyer used that slanted coverage to motivate his team, and it worked.
"The ’06 (Florida) team was very angry," Meyer said of his first title-winning squad. "That’s a coach’s dream, to coach an angry group of guys that are on a mission."
Nine months later, Meyer's Gators watched rival Georgia literally dance its way to a 42-30 upset win. That festered for a year, and when the two teams met again, it took all of 45 seconds of game action for Florida to deliver a simple message — we're angry, and this is going to be a bad day for you.
*Quick shoutout to 2008-quality YouTube videos.
That '08 Florida team went on to win it all.
Ohio State's 2014 title team had a similar attitude. After losing quarterback Braxton Miller in preseason camp, then falling to Virginia Tech in Week 2, just about everyone wrote the Buckeyes off. They responded by winning 13-straight games on their way to claiming the first ever College Football Playoff National Championship.
All of those teams were angry. They also had to bounce back from upset losses.
Whether this year's Buckeyes can do the same and reinvigorate their playoff hopes remains to be seen. There are big issues to fix — most notably the run game, a fading offensive line, a broken red-zone offense and a defensive unit that gives up too many big plays far too frequently.
The bye-week couldn't have come at a better time for the Buckeyes. After falling apart on the road to Purdue, Meyer and his team came back to Columbus with two weeks to reevaluate and let that anger fester.
"It was a tough loss," Meyer said on his radio show Thursday. "We haven't had many bye weeks after losses. It was a chance to get the taste out of your mouth, get some things fixed and get some guys healthy."
Was it enough time? Were the Buckeyes able to fix what ailed them while managing that anger as a motivational tool?
It won't take long to find out. The Buckeyes play host to Nebraska Saturday afternoon, and despite its 2-6 record, Scott Frost's team invades Columbus with a lot of momentum offensively.
After averaging just 23.3 points per game in their first six outings (all losses), the Cornhuskers found their footing and put up 53 and 45 points in consecutive weeks. Those kind of numbers are expected against the previous week's opponent (Bethune-Cookman), but the 53 points Nebraska put on the board two weeks ago was against Minnesota and its top 20 defense.
The Cornhuskers are expecting a fight against a motivated team in the first quarter. The message they're preaching this week is to weather the early storm and take over.
“I know they will be prepared in the first quarter to play their best football of the season," Nebraska linebacker Mohamed Barry said this week, via Tony Gerdeman of The Ozone. “Your execution has to withstand that fire they’re going to bring during that first quarter. If you can do that, then Purdue is going to seep back into their minds. The doubt is going to seep back into their minds. So that first quarter is big for us."
That could very well happen if Ohio State hasn't found a remedy for its issues or harnessed their anger properly. But Meyer is challenging his team to push back.
"We've been hit in the jaw before," Meyer said. "Now it's time to rebound and get going."
If they do get going, the Buckeyes could fight their way to the playoff.
