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OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 28, 2013Urban MeyerWISCONSIN – 24 COACH MEYER: Thanks for being here and a great team win and an incredible atmosphere, very appreciative to our fans and the Buckeye walk the skull session and just the atmosphere I can't imagine much better, especially national television audience to watch it.  Our team came out hard and fast. We just got news we lost our captain. Christian Bryant has a broken ankle. And just tough news. That's the hardest part of this whole job is to see‑‑ I'm not sure everybody understands what goes into playing a football game, the training and work ethic and all that. My goodness. Just love that kid. I just want to ask you to keep Christian's family in your prayers and that darn kid has done so much for our program, come so far. Incredible leadership skills. And he's going to be even more valuable outside of football. I love that guy. Doggone it. Hard part of the game, boy. Q. On the other side of the football, just Braxton's play tonight. He clearly looked sharp. He threw it with velocity. Can you rate how he played tonight? COACH MEYER: I think he played very well. I think looks he threw 200 yards, four touchdowns, two sacks. Played very good defense. Didn't realize how many seniors on the defense, well coached, hard‑playing outfit. I don't think I said that in the beginning of my statement, but I think the team we played is very good. Should be undefeated except for some ridiculous call. Two Big Ten teams going at each other. Incredible environment. Braxton did have a heck of a day. We sit much better if our captain doesn't get hurt and we close the game better but it's part of the game. Q. Seems like it's been kind of popular for the last couple of weeks to stir up controversy with your quarterbacks. Was there ever a doubt if Braxton was healthy‑‑ COACH MEYER: Oh, no not if he's healthy. If he was healthy, I'd like to get Kenny in the game. Just in the moment it didn't happen. The same with Jordan Hall. So those are two guys that I've got to make sure we handle the right way, because they deserve to play. So those are‑‑ no, but when Braxton‑‑ when I saw on Thursday what I saw, then there was no doubt who was going to be our starter. And we gotta keep moving forward and keep everybody locked in on the target. And it's going to be a tough target again next week. Q. Can you just talk a bit about limiting them running the football? I mean they were the third best in the country, just 104 yards rushing. COACH MEYER: The game plan shifted early on them in the game. I think our guys, we held that No. 25 to 74 total yards. We started hitting them in the backfield a little bit. Tremendous player. We contained them. One of the things, the longest run from scrimmage looked like it was 17 yards. And that's not like them. I mean, I think doggone they're averaging I want to say 12, 14 yards a carry. So the thing that hurt us a little bit was we only got two sacks they threw the ball 34 times. That's not acceptable. No. 4 for them he's got my vote for all Big Ten. He did an incredible job. Q. So was it just the coach's decision that Jordan didn't play very much and Carlos got the bulk of the carries? COACH MEYER: No issue. Just a coach's decision. We're going to keep evaluating it, because No. 2 or 7, whatever he is now, he deserves to be more involved in that game. So I'm going to evaluate that tomorrow. Q. Having LeBron James involved with the team like that today, what's that like and does that do anything for the team? COACH MEYER: I don't know. I just know I love athletes that handle their business. I love athletes that live right off the field and show incredible leadership. And I've always been a LeBron fan. I met him back when he was at Akron Saint Vincent, Saint Mary. To have him come and be gracious with our team visit our team, speak to our team, actually spoke to our team today, plus he's a Buckeye. He loves Ohio State. And he's made that clear several times to me throughout the year. Q. Two things, I wanted to ask you real quick about: Were you surprised the way they were able to move the football through the air sustaining it that way? And the other question I had for you was about your punter, Cameron Johnson, the way he was able to trap them deep in their own end numerous times tonight. COACH MEYER: Where is the return yardage? Shoot we gave up three yards. First of the year. We work real hard on that, by the way. And I think I called up Devin Smith at the end of the game we finally got a good hang time of our punter 4.4 hang time which we're always pushing for four and a half seconds. But that was play of the day to go punt that thing like he did, got it off in good time. And great coverage and put them back on the minus 10‑yard line. Our punt team is solid that's probably the star of our special teams. That's an area that we have to continue to work to get better. Q. You talked about being a tough target again next week. What are some sort of preliminary things that concern you about next Saturday's game? COACH MEYER: My leader, our leader is in an ambulance right now going to the hospital to have surgery on his leg. So that's the concerning part. He's our leader. There's no doubt about who is one of our‑‑ if not the defense leader, one of them. And he's just devastated. So that's concern number one. Concern probably one, two and three is who is going to fill his spot. Who is going to assume the leadership obligation, responsibility that he has, that he has shown. Incredible young man. Incredible. His parents should be very, very proud of that guy. I love that guy. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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