Buckeyes top rivals, but challenge grows with star QB done for season
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Fourth-and-1, fourth quarter, one-touchdown game vs. hated rival. Late November, last game of the regular season, record crowd of more than 108,000 on hand. It's the stuff that makes football great, but in this moment Ohio State coach Urban Meyer stood there alone on Saturday.
Well, Meyer wasn't actually standing. He was about five yards away from the offensive huddle, crouched down, hands on his knees. He was looking directly at the turf, nowhere else.
For almost a full minute.
All this Ohio State — Michigan stuff is fun until Meyer's hot-handed quarterback, J.T. Barrett, suffers a broken ankle, a mediocre Michigan team shows up like it's the Super Bowl and the coach has to call timeout before fourth down-and-2 feet at the Michigan 44 with just over five minutes left. In that timeout, Meyer has to weigh all the options and take his team's temperature and decide if those 2 feet feel more like 22. He has to do this knowing that Michigan has absolutely nothing to lose and his Buckeyes, who already lost their magician of a quarterback, could lose everything because as big as Ohio State-Michigan is, Meyer was hired to win these games in December and January. Now it's games, plural.
Meyer is alone, staring at the turf, squeezing and twisting his pants and adding it all up.
Then he joins the huddle, offers words of encouragement, and his offense trots out to try to get those 2 feet. Meyer stands there, stoic and numb, and watches.
And Ezekiel Elliott runs 44 yards for a touchdown. Meyer's Bucks go up 14 and eventually win 42-28. Michigan goes home at 5-7 with no bowl game this season.
Meyer is a genius, again, a genius who can hold his head high.
"It worked, so I'll take credit for the call," Meyer joked of Elliott's run. "I asked our offensive line coach very charismatically, 'Can we get it?' And without hesitation, he looked me right in the eye and said we can."
From the agony of maybe losing to the joy of winning to the agony of losing, as Meyer said, "a Heisman Trophy candidate" on the last Saturday of November with at least two games left.
All this stuff is fun, right?
By the time Ohio State was taking knees to end the game, Meyer was triumphantly pacing the sideline, both fists raised, grinning wildly.
He felt better.
See? This Ohio State-Michigan stuff is fun.
And sometime Sunday morning, Meyer and his assistant coaches will show up for work and prepare for the Big Ten Championship Game, for another quarterback change, for another game Ohio State is supposed to win and will be expected to win and with this team's ultimate destination still uncertain because there's a playoff committee and because crazy things happen and because Cardale Jones, who once was suspended for tweeting that he didn't come to Ohio State "to play school" will now quarterback the biggest game(s) since the last time Ohio State got here.
"We're going to enjoy this," Meyer said of beating Michigan. "But then we're going to get back to work."
Ohio State's season changed with Barrett's injury. The course of the program may have changed, too, considering Braxton Miller has another year of eligibility if he wants to use it and considering the College Football Playoff committee will get one game to watch Jones — and maybe wildcat quarterback Jalin Marshall — run the Buckeyes offense. All the big goals are attainable with the talent Meyer is compiling, but big moments and big decisions await.
Asked if any team can still be good with its third quarterback running the show, Meyer said the "Buckeyes can be. I'm not worried about other teams."
With the outcome of the Michigan game and those big goals uncertain, Meyer crouched down. Solo. As alone with his thoughts as anyone could be amidst 108,000 or so.
Meyer's team won, of course — it usually does — but now the real work begins.
