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PHONE'S RINGING -- IT'S URBAN ON THE LINE

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B1G Blog Q&A with Urban Meyer

By 11W Staff - 02 February 2012
13 Comments

RE: 2013 Class-"Oh, we're killing it. We're all over it." (ESPN/Bennett)

Source espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/44977/qa-ohio-state-coach-urban-meye...

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Comments

Jdadams01 on 2 Feb 2012 - 4:58pm #

"AR: In your experience, and understanding every player is different, how long does it take players with that talent level to make an impact on the field?

UM: We're going to rotate them right away. We don't redshirt here at Ohio State. We're changing that up. We're going to have the culture out here that there's no redshirting. If you don't play here, it's because you're not good enough. It's not because we're holding you back. We're going to recruit the kind of player where we want them on the field right now. That's the approach we took at Florida, and it's the approach we're going to take here."

Love it.

rdubs on 2 Feb 2012 - 8:00pm #

Anyone else wishing we hadn't redshirted Sabino so that we could have another spot for Caleb or both Neal/Diggs (whatever that situation is)? I think there are certain cases like if Dodson's arm isn't quite ready, that we should still redshirt, but in general if you are a good recruiter you shouldn't need to redshirt people because it just cuts the number of spots left available. And with this class since we got so many D-lineman we shouldn't need to redshirt those guys because you can rotate the D line enough to give everyone a shot. Linebacker will be interesting though. Might see some transfers in a couple years if no one redshirts. Especially if we get some guys like Jaylon Smith coming up.

bassplayer7770 on 2 Feb 2012 - 5:09pm #

I also enjoyed the part basically saying the real workouts haven't started yet... Nice.

O-H Kee Pa on 2 Feb 2012 - 5:14pm #

Completely unrelated: just picked up the bass for the very first time 3 months ago. I'm taking lessons, but are there any good online communities that you would suggest?

bassplayer7770 on 2 Feb 2012 - 5:24pm #

Talkbass.com is probably a good place to start.

O-H Kee Pa on 2 Feb 2012 - 5:26pm #

Great. Thank you.

RBuck Mod on 3 Feb 2012 - 11:11am #

Thanks, I love to bass fish:/

"It's just another case of there you are". ~ Doc (1918-2012)

ThirdLegLouie on 2 Feb 2012 - 5:13pm #

All of the players who have been tweeting about how these recent workouts have been the hardest they've done must not have got the memo that this was just the "indoctrination" period. LOL I am absolutely f****** loving this.

If you ain't a Silver Bullet, you're a target

toledobuckeyefanjim on 2 Feb 2012 - 5:36pm #

According to a story published in the Toledo Blade, 12-4-11, when Meyer took over at Bowling Green, a lot of players hit the road once they found out they couldn't take the workouts. Excerpt:

"Josh Harris was one of those who stayed. After playing running back and kick returner and suffering through a 2-9 record that was BG's sixth straight losing season under Meyer's predecessor, Harris moved to quarterback and finished his career with a number of records.

"I think 11 guys left the team on the spot," Harris said about the team's initial workout under Meyer, which included some punitive sprints to atone for a few players skipping class. "Those of us that decided to stay, it was a leap of faith. We were killing ourselves for a guy we didn't know anything about. These guys here at Ohio State, they know what they're getting. We didn't know."

Expect more attrition as the year goes forward. The players don't know what's in store for them. And the Falcons were much better under Meyer.

Dean on 2 Feb 2012 - 6:58pm #

What happened to the link? All it's showing me is http://

Found the link in other comments, if anyone is looking:

http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/44977/qa-ohio-state-coach-urban...

Elika Staff on 3 Feb 2012 - 2:50am #

Thanks for the heads up. Fixed.

How firm thy friendship... OH-I-O!

Corey Staff on 3 Feb 2012 - 4:40am #

I love these 2 Q&A's:

How did you go about evaluating what you needed in recruiting when you hadn't seen the players on the current roster much in person?

UM: Well, that's where Luke Fickell and Mike Vrabel and Stan Drayton and when Taver Johnson was here, they were the ones [who helped]. Then when I went out to watch practice, I just walked out on the practice field and just kind of watched for a second, and I could tell our offensive line didn't look the way we needed them to look. I could tell we were short on pass-rushers off the edge. And then linebackers. So those are the three areas that we had to get just to be functional. So we attacked it as hard as we could and it all came together.

You mentioned Wednesday that you're not happy with the speed at the offensive skill positions. You're not necessarily done with this class, but was that just not out there for you this year, or is it more of a priority going forward?

UM: Yeah, we're not happy where we're at with our speed and skill on offense. I don't know what we have. I saw on film and looked at the stats, and you would say from statistical analysis and just evaluation that we're not very good at all. But I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and see what happens in spring practice and evaluate them in the offseason, which starts Monday. But we're not where we need to be, by a long shot.

It's so refreshing to have a coach who is honest and doesn't give canned answers.

Nick Buckeye on 3 Feb 2012 - 11:08am #

"...I could tell our offensive line didn't look the way we needed them to look." Sigh, the least surprising sentence I've read in months. I feel for Boston College, they really stepped in it.