Meyer’s charge: Revive offense
New assistants aim to add punch as sting of Playoff shutout lingers
It is not news that Urban Meyer does not take losing well. In this, he is hardly unique in his profession — except that he loses less often than most — but he’s never been good at it.
His signature look might have been best captured a few years back after a Big Ten championship game. Ohio State had won the first 24 games Meyer coached, then lost to Michigan State. Afterward, Meyer ended up sitting forlorn on a golf cart in a stadium corridor, eating cold pizza and staring straight ahead into, well, who knows? But nowhere good. Losing, he likes to say, is awful. What, then, to make of what happened last New Year’s Eve? Clemson’s 31-0 victory in a College Football Playoff semifinal was by almost any measure the worst loss of Meyer’s career. To recap: Ohio State had not been shut out since 1993 — 295 games.
In Meyer’s 15 years as a head coach, his teams had never not scored. It also was the most lopsided loss.
“It was awful,” Meyer said Monday at the Big Ten media days.
That’s why Ohio State’s coaching staff looks awfully different. In the days afterward, Meyer jettisoned offensive coordinator Ed Warinner and co-offensive coordinator Tim Beck. He hired Kevin Wilson and Ryan Day.
“Professionally, (the loss) changed how we do business on offense,” Meyer said.
Potentially, it could change how the Buckeyes do this season. Ohio State is a popular preseason pick to win the Big Ten and reach the Playoff. Not that it’s any surprise. As Meyer noted Monday, “Ohio State is always going to be there.”
But what will the Buckeyes do if they get there? That’s why Wilson and Day are aboard.
Wilson was suddenly available after being forced out as Indiana’s head coach. Day, who had been working in the NFL for Chip Kelly, was looking for work, as well. Their charge is simple: Recharge an Ohio State offense that was stagnant in 2017. The passing game ranked 81st nationally; in their last three games, the Buckeyes’ best passing total was 127 yards.
Find a way to turn J.T. Barrett, the Buckeyes’ fifth-year senior quarterback, back into the player he was as a redshirt freshman, when he was the Big Ten’s offensive player of the year in 2014. But before we get too harsh with Barrett, whose completion rate dropped from 64.7% in 2014 to 61.5% last season, there were myriad other issues with the Buckeyes offense in 2016.
“Our offensive line wasn’t up to speed, our tight ends were not good and our receivers weren’t playing to potential,” Meyer said. “The quarterback takes the hit. We have to get better (around him).”
Wilson, who was the architect of explosive offenses at Oklahoma before getting the Indiana job, is the first established offensive coordinator Meyer has hired; the others have been, as he put it, “young up-and-comers” or coaches promoted from within his staff. As such, he says he has given Wilson more autonomy.
“That’s earned,” Meyer said. “He comes with a pretty impressive track record. He’s good for what we were lacking.”
Wilson, meanwhile, has been impressed by what he found upon arrival. He likened the talent level to what he worked with at Oklahoma in the late 2000s and said the players are “very mature, very disciplined and very driven.” How much of their drive comes from the Fiesta Bowl is hard to know.
“It’s a talented team,” Wilson said. “But there’s a little bit of edge. Is that why? I don’t know.”
If there’s edge from the shutout, it’s apparently organic. Players downplayed it Monday, and Meyer has not emphasized the loss during the offseason. No motivational stickers. No banners. No slogans.
“That ship has sailed,” he said. “It’s gone.”
But then again, reinforcement is unnecessary.
“It’s in the back of everyone’s mind,” he said.
And yeah, it’s an awful thought — which for the Buckeyes in the offseason might not have been a bad thing.
“It forces you to re-evaluate everything you do,” Meyer said, “and to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”