Winning a national championship can have the effect of putting a big target on your back.
For the Ohio State Buckeyes, this is already becoming apparent three weeks into the regular season. The transition from being the hunter to the hunted means they will be getting the opposition’s best shot week in and week out. Having the right psychology from a preparation standpoint is key.
Head coach Urban Meyer hinted at the team’s recent inability to adapt to such a dynamic, especially offensively, in his Monday press conference following the team’s closer than expected 20-13 win over Northern Illinois over the weekend.
“I think (that psychology of being the hunted) affected us offensively, and we’re playing defense on offense right now, and you don’t do that,” Meyer said.
This after a disjointed performance on that side of the football and in particular at the quarterback position. Neither Cardale Jones nor JT Barrett stood out with their respective performances on the day. Jones started for the third straight game but after throwing two interceptions, was replaced in the first quarter and didn’t return. Barrett was responsible for the only offensive touchdown of the day for OSU, a 23 yard pass to Michael Thomas, but still finished with less than 100 yards passing in the remaining three quarters of the game.
It’s for that reason that Meyer remained non-committal on whether Jones would remain the starter or if he’s considering handing the job back to Barrett ahead of the Buckeyes next game against Western Michigan on Saturday. What was his response when asked about Jones’ status in that regard?
“I don’t know,” Meyer stated.
Does the fact that both Jones and Barrett struggled so mightily against the Huskies indicate that it may be a mistake on Meyer’s part to not have named a clear-cut starter between the two at this point? Is there too much uncertainty that may be affecting game day preparation?
The Buckeye head man doesn’t think so. In fact, he mentioned that teams at the next level oftentimes deal with similar situations and in many respects the competition between two capable signal callers can indeed be healthy in the long run.
“Today, not one is beating out the other, and they’re not playing great,” he emphasized. “So once again, if that’s an excuse, which I call it an excuse of how can you perform with someone looking over your shoulder, NFL quarterbacks do. I’ve never had one not. We’ve always had a back-up quarterback. It just happens the back-up quarterback here whoever it may be is really good.”
What was also evidently missing for the most part from the OSU offense against Northern Illinois was lack of big plays. The Buckeyes averaged a paltry 4.52 yards per play, something that Meyer emphasized was concerning. This is especially true considering part of Ohio State’s recruiting strategy under Meyer has been to find athletes capable of breaking off those double-digit yard gains on a regular basis.
Once again, it all comes back to that underlying theme associated with a title defense season.
“…you’re the hunted instead of the hunter,” Meyer noted. “We recruit players to have explosive plays. We give them opportunities to have explosive plays and over the last several years for the majority, they made them. We’re not doing that right now, so that’s a high, high emphasis right now.”
Ohio State closes out their non-conference slate with a second straight contest against a MAC foe when Western Michigan comes to Columbus on Saturday. The Buckeyes will be looking to win their 17th consecutive game which would add to the nation’s longest current winning streak.
Main Photo:
