After a 24-game winning streak, Ohio State has lost three of its last four games.
Head coach Urban Meyer said there’s no magic trick to getting the Buckeyes, which began this season with Big Ten and national championship hopes, back on track after a crushing 35-21 loss to Virginia Tech last weekend.
“It’s all about execution. I’m not sure messages — we’re not gonna do a secret handshake or a T-shirt to finish a game," he said Wednesday. "You gotta do it. We haven’t done it, you’re right."
Barring a stunning meltdown, Ohio State should be able to right the ship against Kent State Saturday at Ohio Stadium.
Notes:
- Meyer said he thinks his team is poised to bounce back: “We had a good practice yesterday day, today was cleanup. It was good. You can only really evaluate that after Saturday’s performance but players are really resilient, these guys are resilient, we’re ready to go.”
- Meyer said the way Ohio State works Noah Spence back into the defensive line rotation is “to be determined with how he responds to everything.” Spence is returning from a three-game suspension for failing a drug test last winter.
- Meyer said “it’s about time” for his wide receivers to make plays. He said the Johnnie Dixon and Noah Brown “are really close” to seeing playing time on the field.
- Meyer said the defense wasn’t bad Saturday, but he wants more: “We all want more. We want more. I felt for almost three quarters we played very good defense and we didn’t close the deal, the last drive in the second, the drive to put them up 28-21 was a heartbreaker. But I’m seeing improvement and I’m seeing a young secondary getting better.”
- Meyer said he’s happy to have a game this weekend and not a bye week to dwell on the loss to the Hokies. “I’ve been there before — you lose a game and you have a bye week or something and have to sit and eat it for two weeks. The best thing is about game two, we’ve got game three right around the corner. It’s already Wednesday, and we get a chance to redeem ourselves.”
- The Buckeyes, Meyer said, are close to fully achieving their “Power of the Unit” mantra. “Pretty close, you know, we make a few plays and I’d probably say even closer in that game. But we’re pretty close. That’s a great question, though … game one, how many units strong were you compared to game two and this will be a great team when we get all nine units strong.”
- Meyer on Alabama transfer center Chad Lindsay, who left the team Monday because of injury: “He’s a great kid, he hurt his shoulder in training camp badly and then his arm would go dead on him and we wish him the best, he’s a good kid. He’s gonna finish … he’s in grad school, so he’s finishing up in January or December.”
- Meyer said the running back pecking order of Ezekiel Elliott, Curtis Samuel and Rod Smith remains the same. “We didn’t use them very much Saturday because (the Hokies) just took the run game away.”
- In this week’s depth chart, freshman Jamarco Jones is listed as the second-string left tackle behind Taylor Decker. Before the season, Meyer said he needed his young offensive lineman to make moves for playing time. Jones is among the first to make the team’s two-deep. “He got hurt during training camp — a sprained ankle — and he’s finally over that, he’s had a really good week of practice. Demetrius Knox is getting close too. We’re just pushing the envelope and we got a week this and we’ve also got a bye week next week, we’re gonna be pushing as hard as we can.”
- Meyer said he wants to see Ohio State start fast against Kent State Saturday. “We haven’t started particularly fast and we had a pretty good reputation for a while there of coming out of the gates real fast, real hard. We haven’t done that yet, it was brought to my attention: I went back and did a little research on it, we haven’t. We gotta go take the lead and play Ohio State style football.
- Meyer on Kent State: “I see a very good MAC school — I’ve been there before when I was at Bowling Green and actually played at Kent. I see a quarterback that can make plays, that’s our biggest concern on defense that I see.” Added Meyer: “Those kids, they got to be a hungry group coming in here because this is their chance to play in front of 110,000 people … I think you’re going to see a hungry group trying to get a win.”
