Ohio State’s loss to Oregon hasn’t changed Urban Meyer’s opinion on how talented the 2024 Ohio State football team is.
Meyer praised Ohio State’s talent throughout the offseason, saying in August that the Buckeyes’ roster “might be the best roster in college football in the last decade.” Two months and one Ohio State loss later, the former Ohio State coach still believes the talent of Ryan Day’s squad is the best in the sport.
Given that, Meyer doesn’t think Buckeye fans should be panicking about the team’s 32-31 defeat at Oregon two weeks ago. He acknowledges the Buckeyes need to be better defensively than they were against the Ducks, but he believes all the issues that were exposed in that game are fixable. And he thinks the Buckeyes will be ready to respond as they begin their second half of the season against Nebraska on Saturday.
“I still think they have the best talent in the country,” Meyer said Friday. “I think they were one yard short against Oregon. It's not time to panic; it's time to get better. You were exposed a little bit in pass defense, so the corners got to play better, you got to get more pressure on the quarterback, but those are all fixable things. So I don't anticipate there's panic. I mean there's pissed off, but I don't think there's panic.
Asked specifically about the Ohio State pass rush’s struggles in Eugene, Meyer said he thinks the Buckeyes should rotate more at defensive end after Jack Sawyer played 59 snaps and JT Tuimoloau played 55 against the Ducks. He also thinks the Buckeyes need to decrease the spacing on their defensive line so that quarterbacks can’t step up in the pocket as much as Dillon Gabriel did against Ohio State.
“60 plays is a lot for D-ends, so they got to get a little rotation going. And then also, you just saw a lot of space between the interior D-line and the ends. Dillon Gabriel was able to step up in the pocket; when you step up in the pocket, that's not good, obviously. So there's got to be a correlation between this and this,” Meyer said, pulling his hands toward him before moving them outward to indicate that Ohio State needs to get more pressure into the backfield without leaving big gaps up the middle. “And when there is, there's sacks. You'll see that. They’ll be better.”
Meyer sees Ohio State as one of three or four “super teams” in college football this season that don’t have any true weaknesses because of how much talent they’ve accumulated and how well they were able to plug holes through the transfer portal.
“I made the comment that even like on our 2014 (national championship) team, and I'm using an example, our right guard struggles after spring, he's still going to struggle in the fall because you can't wave your arms and all of a sudden you've got a new player. Now you can,” Meyer said. “So I just don't think there's any weaknesses on the – right now it's Georgia, Oregon and Ohio State. I just don't – show me a weakness and I'll say it's not. Like don't say our defensive ends are a weakness here, because they're not. They’ve just got to do things a little different, a little better.”
Fellow Big Noon Kickoff analyst Brady Quinn, who also met with reporters at Ohio State on Friday afternoon, also still believes Ohio State is one of the two best teams in the country along with Georgia.
“I'd say them and Georgia are the two most talented teams, the two best teams. And I understand Oregon just beat them, but the reality is, I think they're going to play that game again in Indianapolis and I think Ohio State wins,” Quinn said. “So they're two of the most talented teams. Texas is up there, too, in that regard. I'm still a big fan of Tennessee, I think they're still continuing to improve, (quarterback Nico Iamaleava) in particular, a guy who’s in that first year starting. So those are kind of the four teams or so, you can throw Oregon into that mix too and make it five, but I still think Ohio State and Georgia are the two best.”
“I still think they have the best talent in the country.”– Urban Meyer on this year’s Ohio State football team
While back in Columbus with the rest of the Big Noon Kickoff crew this week, Meyer is also celebrating the 10th anniversary of the 2014 national championship team, which will be honored at Ohio Stadium on Saturday. About 40 members of that team are expected to be at the Shoe for Saturday’s game against Nebraska, and the former OSU coach hosted an event at his eponymous restaurant in Dublin, Urban Meyer’s Pint House, on Thursday to both celebrate the 2014 national championship team and raise money for the Buckeye Cruise for Cancer.
Meyer said it’s hard to believe it’s already been a decade since that national championship season, and he still marvels at how the Buckeyes were able to get it done despite losing two quarterbacks, Braxton Miller and J.T. Barrett, to season-ending injuries before Cardale Jones led Ohio State to glory in an epic postseason run.
“It's hard to believe that it's been 10 years, and as I told the crowd last night, when you really evaluate, that was probably the most improbable national title when you're playing with your third-string quarterback. It never happened before, and I don't think you'll ever see that again,” Meyer said.
