Urban Meyer Big 10 conference call racap – 11-5-13

Meyer believes this Ohio State team is a national championship contender and compared it to his 2006 team at Florida that ended up beating Ohio State for the title. He said there are a lot of similarities between the two teams from replacing a lot of starters on defense from the year before, battling through injuries, two good QB’s and the team gets better each week like they did at Florida.

Meyer is happy with his run defense and how the defense has improved overall, but two areas he feels they need to improve in the most are pass defense and in the kick return game and they will work on that during the bye and rest of the season.

Meyer said he’ll try and watch both games on Thursday night – #3 Oregon at #5 Stanford and #10 Oklahoma at #6 Baylor.

Meyer loves the fact that on this year’s Ohio State team –“These kids want to be coached and want to be great”, Meyer loves that attitude!

Meyer said starting right tackle Taylor decker’s knee sprain is coming along. He said it didn’t swell, but he isn’t going to practice this week and the Buckeyes hope to have him back next week.

Meyer said that running back Jordan hall has a chronic knee problem and was a late game scratch versus Purdue because it stiffened up on him.

Meyer said he thinks tight end Jeff Heuerman could end up being one of the best tight ends in the country by the time he’s done at Ohio State.

Meyer also handed out praise to Michigan State, calling them one of the best defenses in the country.

Meyer also said that Wisconsin linebacker Chris Borland is the best blitzing linebacker in the country, but that OSU’s Ryan Shazier is right up there.