Ohio State linebacker Christian Alliegro said Tuesday the biggest change to preparation is an uptick in urgency to make sure this season turns out they way they want. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Big Ten competition commences Saturday at noon against Illinois – time for nine straight weeks of big-boy football to see what this team is made of.
Columbus, OH – Christian Alliegro walked casually into the team room for Tuesday’s news conference looking chill, calm and collected. His flowing, light-brown hair and white Ohio State polo didn’t shout intensity.
His look said everything is cool.
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Not the persona you might expect from a linebacker with the Big Ten opener a few days away, two games removed from the Texas tailspin that knocked the Buckeyes off the No. 1 pedestal.
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Don’t worry, though. The newly minted No. 7 Buckeyes (Ole Miss jumped from No. 8 to No. 4) haven’t forgotten the final down beat of their stay inside the Austin city limits. They know what’s up, what’s expected of them, and what to do about it.
Ain’t nothing that matters going too right around here.
That was the underlying vibe from noon to 12:45.
Sandwiched around Texas were the easiest of nonconference wins over Ball State and Kent State. Not much of substance – at least predictable substance for the long road ahead – is revealed in such perfunctory performances.
Head Buckeye Ryan Day asked for a passionate response this past Saturday and said he got it. But did the Buckeyes get any better at anything? Big Ten opponents will provide feedback on that question.
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The question for this team is urgency. How much do they care? How hard will they work? Did surrendering a 20-point lead change their approach?
“I wouldn’t say it feels different because your preparation doesn’t change – it should always stay the same,” Alliegro said. “You should be consistent with that.”
Then came the but. When there’s a but, you know the first part of the answer is what is supposed to be said. What comes after the but is the true feeling, the one you feel compelled to hide but you can’t.
Ohio State linebacker Christian Alliegro, a transfer from Wisconsin, has let his hair grow in Columbus. Tuesday he talked about an uptick in urgency after the Texas loss.
And what came after the but is exactly where this team must be to be who they say they can be in January.
“But,” Alliegro continued, “I would say just the urgency. We got to win out from here.”
There it is. Urgency. The next four weeks – Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Indiana – will show this team to be one of two species. They will be urgent, seeing the need to improve as an emergency, or, la de da, they will just be happy to go along for the ride however far it travels.
Urgency can’t be manufactured. Coaches – as much as we romanticize about pregame and halftime speeches – can’t be the motivating factor. The players must want it themselves. They are the motivators.
This team needs to change more between its ears and in its heart than it does schematically (and that’s not to say the schemes are at all dialed in). Competitive excellence must be more than a sign on the wall – it must be a way of life for this team to have a chance to rise again to a championship level.
Alliegro addressed urgency again later – eventually – after another question sought answers to scheme changes created by the loss.
“I don’t think we came out of that game like, ‘Oh, my gosh, we got to change everything,’” he said. “We really were winning that game for three quarters, and things kind of fell apart in that fourth quarter. If a few things went our way, we could have won that game as well.”
Then, another but.
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“But I think, honestly, we just thought we just lost that game more than they won the game,” he said. “I don’t think there was any panic, but there was definitely more of an urgency to what we’re doing.”
Panic is bad. Panic means a loss of confidence.
Ryan Day’s point of emphasis Tuesday addressed the running backs’ lack of breaking big runs against Kent State.
Urgency is good. Urgency means you know you can do it. You just need to focus more on your job and ignore the outside noise that praises and tears down.
“We all want perfection – we all want to be 3-0,” Day said. “I don’t think anybody’s happy with it. We’ve got to go beat Illinois. That’s the focus.”
At the risk of sounding like a coach, he’s correct. The first three games – especially the loss – matter not. How this team performs as the temperature chills will tell the story of their season more than a bad fourth quarter in hot, mid-September.
Still, the football stuff matters.
Questions about every position group, depth chart, scheme and coaching pile up in a football season, especially early and especially when the schedule and results are what they are.
The most specific urgency talk Tuesday centered on the running game. This time the discussion did not include the abilities of the offensive line. Day talked about the lack of explosive runs that he thought should have been made like happened against Ball State and to a lesser degree against Texas.
Ja’Kobi Jackson said Sunday’s film session challenged the room to be better this week.
Day wants the backs to be slow to the hole and fast through it. And in gap schemes, which they ran a good bit of Saturday, the idea is to hit the hole the play is designed to create with a burst. Then get downhill to the linebackers and make them miss.
“We had some really good big holes in the game and those should have been explosive plays and they weren’t,” Day said. “But those guys know that. They’re challenged. They own it. It was a huge emphasis in the offseason. So it needs to show up here against Illinois.”
Hearing what Day said Tuesday won’t be news to the running back crew after their 145-yard, 3.8 yards-per-carry performance against Kent State. They were also a big part of a 1-for-8 third-down conversion rate and some red-zone inefficiency.
Sunday’s film review didn’t merit even one-thumbs up.
“All our film sessions are tough, but this one had a little more kick to it,” said Ja’Kobi Jackson, who rushed for 47 yards on eight carries and scored two touchdowns. “That’s what you expect when you come to The Ohio State University. Our coaches are harping on us about doing the little things right and being able to read the blocks and press the holes, so that’s just what we got to continue to do.”
With urgency.
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