Coach Meyer’s comments following the win over the Central Florida Knights, courtesy of Fox Sports Ohio: (transcription provided by the Ohio State Athletic Department)
As always, I like to give credit to a very good team we faced in Central Florida. We knew going in they would try to run downhill on us.
I think this is the second week in a row we held a team under 100 yards rushing. However, pass defense, we have a long way to go. Getting pressure on the quarterback.
Offensively, we’re down to our third tailback, and it looked like it. We have to get better. The guys carrying the ball are talented, just terrible mistakes. Penalties and turnovers are not ‑‑ in the first game, very minimal penalties and zero turnovers.
And then this week was not good. So just gotta fix it. We’re going to have to really ID who is going to touch the ball. We have to go back to the drawing board and make some decisions on who is going to physically touch that ball and they have to take care of it, obviously.
So I would also like to thank our fans and our student body. Tremendous. And also the weatherman did a nice job for us. So appreciate his effort. And got a big one next week, but we’re going to enjoy the win. Winning major college football games is a tough duty, especially when you face a quality opponent.
Q. Of the three numbers, 27 carries by Braxton, the three turnovers, the 10 penalties, which one bothers you the most?
COACH MEYER: The turnovers ‑‑ the turnovers and penalties were ‑‑ turnovers ‑‑ pick your poison. Turnovers and penalties. You can’t win. That’s not a good team.
Right now we’re not ‑‑ I don’t want to say we’re not a good team. But we’re not. We’re just mushing around out there. And we’ve got to be much better than we are.
Q. Update, Nathan Williams didn’t dress.
COACH MEYER: He was all sore all week. He didn’t practice. Frustrating for him, frustrating for us because is he in, not in? And it’s a tough injury. He’s got a micro fracture injury.
Q. Travis Howard?
COACH MEYER: He had some stingers. My understanding he’ll be fine for next week. Had some tough injuries. But overall, once again, I don’t want to be a downer around here. We won a frickin’ game. Won by two touchdowns against a quality opponent. Time to move on, get ready to go play.
Q. Last week you said that, I think, the 17 carries that Braxton had were too many. And he’s obviously the most talented guy out there. How do you limit that in this kind of situation? Will you tell him specifically don’t carry the ball as much?
COACH MEYER: No. We called some of those ‑‑ we had more direct runs ‑‑ last week I want to say we had three direct runs where he made a couple of decisions that were incorrect where he pulled it where he should have gave it. He’s scrambling around. Not all those are direct runs.
He’s kind of the guy that’s an athlete playing quarterback. We’re changing that. But that’s too much. I’ll say it again next week.
But we have to find a way to win that game. Open for any suggestions ‑‑ not really. I apologize, I’m not open for suggestions. (Laughter) I know we’ll get some. But we’ve got to develop a running back.
We need a guy to turn around and hand the ball off and pound it in there, get six, seven, eight yards and line up and go. And we’ve certainly got some guys with some talent. Not much experience now. But we’re high and dry ‑‑ we’ve got two guys. Let’s go. We’ve got three injured tailbacks right now in the program. One’s out for the year and one’s been out for about eight weeks and one I don’t know how long he’s going to be out.
And Braxton Miller ‑‑ you did make a correct statement, Braxton Miller’s the most talented runner on the team. Another guy that’s done a nice job that I’ll investigate more this week is Philly Brown, turning into that playmaker, you might see him carrying the ball a little bit on the east/west stuff. We have to.
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