Urban Meyer Sees Ohio State's Team Chemistry Improving, a Main Reason he's Confident Production Will Increase Soon in All Phases

By Eric Seger on October 7, 2015 at 8:35 am
Urban Meyer said he feels his team's chemistry is improving.
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Urban Meyer sometimes gets blindsided by a question, but he doesn't always admit when he's caught off guard.

Tuesday on the Big Ten teleconference, Ohio State's head football coach felt startled when a reporter prompted him with a question regarding his feelings on team chemistry. The inquiry: Does good team chemistry allow you to win? Or does winning create good team chemistry?

"That is deep, man. Holy cow," Meyer said. "Let me pull out my psychology degree on that one. I'd have to give that some thought."

“I think our focus, our whole goal was to be perfect and obviously, you point a team to me that's been perfect — I've never seen one. I’ve learned a lot and our focus is not to be perfect, our focus is to play as hard as we possibly can.”– Urban Meyer

Meyer then paused, asked for a clarification on the question, got it, and responded in slight generality.

"The correlation between the two, I think they’re both tied into having winning teams," Meyer said. "I think great teams you have to have great chemistry and losing games will often deteriorate great chemistry because of just the wear and tear on you so I think it impacts one another."

Meyer's in his 15th season as a head college football coach, so you can bet he knows what he's talking about with most anything when it comes to winning and breeding success. There's a reason he boasts the best winning percentage of any active coach (.850) in the sport.

"Coaches are responsible to just teach and fill the toolbox with fundamentals and if that’s not happening we have to ask the question, why?" Meyer said.

That's what he and his staff are currently doing in Columbus, although the Buckeyes sit atop the polls as defending national champions and are 5-0. After some underwhelming performances put in place by superbly extreme expectations, Ohio State is at a bit of a crossroads with its season.

The offense is wildly inconsistent in many areas, particularly the red zone and passing game with Cardale Jones. Ohio State's turning the ball over at "an alarming rate," to quote Meyer, giving it away three times in Saturday's 34-27 survival at Indiana.

But Meyer's been here before. He's won 43 games at Ohio State against just three losses, an outstanding mark but one that's not entirely unexpected. At Florida, he took home a pair of national titles and won at least 20 consecutive games on two separate occasions (though one of those streaks bled over from his time at Utah). He triumphed in his first 24 games as Ohio State's head coach.

Meyer's been around the block. He knows what it's like to come back with a loaded roster after winning a title, doing so in 2009 with Tim Tebow and Co. after capturing the 2008 BCS National Championship.

"Then '08 was very similar, had a lot of returning players and nothing was ever good enough," Meyer said Tuesday. "I didn't handle that probably the best way."

The stories from that season are well-documented with Meyer's health and constant pursuit of perfection driving him down a path that nearly killed him. He's vowed to be different now, both because he's back home in Ohio and striving to be flawless is impossible.

Buckeye defense

"I think our focus, our whole goal was to be perfect and obviously, you point a team to me that's been perfect — I've never seen one," Meyer said. "I’ve learned a lot and our focus is not to be perfect, our focus is to play as hard as we possibly can."

He's instilled that in his players, too, even though things haven't looked quite the way those on the outside expected it to the first month of the season.

"We're on the tracks right now. We're just getting better each week," safety Vonn Bell said Monday. "We're getting to know each other better a little bit better now so it seems like we don't need the coaches as much as we did last year."

With so much talent and experience on both sides of the ball present, Ohio State is faced with the dreaded fight against complacency. It's a new season, a new team, a new staff with a pair of additions in Tony Alford and Tim Beck.

Things are a little different, and Meyer knows it. Which is why he's working to fit the pieces he has together in the proverbial puzzle that clicks together and spits out a winner.

"That’s what we’re doing, and the good thing is this is a very good practice team and I anticipate you’ll see a progress as we continue to move forward," Meyer said.

Meyer called departed offensive coordinator and quarterback whisperer Tom Herman "one of the best" coaches he's ever been around, but added Beck is excellent in his own ways as his replacement. It just takes time and live games to corroborate it all into one straight avenue together all the way down from the quarterback, to the offensive line, to the wide receivers and running backs.

In the end, it's new elements bonding together with a necessary chemistry to build a common product.

"It’s not all the quarterback. The timing between the quarterback and receivers, it’s off right now so we’re going to work hard to fix it," Meyer said. "There's certainly an impact (from Herman's exit), but that happens. I have all the confidence in the world that we’re going to get the production back here real soon."

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