Ohio State football, a national powerhouse once thought to be a no-brainer inclusion in the College Football Playoff, is now fighting for its life to end up in the 12-team field.
The then-No. 2 Buckeyes dropped their second game of the season last Saturday, falling at USC, 30-18.
To one of the living figures most synonymous with the program, it wasn’t just a loss. It was a reason for alarm.
Speaking this week on “The Triple Option” — the podcast he co-hosts with Mark Ingram and Rob Stone — former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer had a dire outlook about where the Buckeyes now find themselves, with a 6-2 record and four games remaining in the regular season,
including what should be a difficult matchup on Saturday, Nov. 7 against Oregon.
“It’s 2026, man. Every day’s a panic,” Meyer said. “You’re telling me Oregon doesn’t have the roster to come in and beat Ohio State? You’re out of your mind. … Hell yeah, it’s time to panic. I’m panicked. I’m a Buckeye.”
While Ohio State’s loss to USC was commonly attributed to the team’s quarterback situation, with true freshman backup Luke Fahey starting in place of the injured Julian Sayin, Meyer believes the Buckeyes’ woes against the Trojans extended well beyond that one position.
Specifically, Meyer cited Ohio State’s penalty issues, which added up to 71 yards.
“I’ll tell you, if I’m the head coach and I’m on that staff, I’m so pissed off at the rest of the team,” Meyer said. “How do you do that? Fifteen penalties, that has nothing to do with the quarterback situation. Dropping balls ... yes, it was raining. Yes, it was windy. And yes, there were all kinds of excuses why you dropped the ball, but you have a backup quarterback. The message has gotta be in that locker room ‘We have all gotta play our best version of ourself and that didn’t happen.’”
(Ohio State finished with 11 penalties, not 15, but his broader point still stands).
Meyer actually spoke relatively positively about Fahey, who completed 21 of 38 passes for 260 yards, a touchdown and no interceptions on an unusually rainy day in Los Angeles. Those sentiments were echoed by the Ohio State staff, who Meyer spoke with and said Fahey earned a “solid B” as a grade for his performance. As Meyer put it, Fahey “played good enough to win that game.”
It was the rest of the team, including the Buckeyes’ once-vaunted defense, that contributed the most to the two-score loss.
Meyer specifically called out two plays, a 69-yard Jayden Maiava touchdown pass on the second offensive play of the game and a 70-yard catch-and-run from USC freshman tight end Mark Bowman, when chiding the Ohio State defense, noting that such big gains are the product of fundamental defensive failures.
The big gain from Bowman, in which he hurdled safety Jaylen McClain before shedding two more would-be Buckeyes tacklers, was especially noteworthy to Meyer, who coached Ohio State from 2012-18 and led it to a national championship in the 2014 season.
“Four people should hit him if you’re pursuing the ball. That’s a Day 1 install on defense,” Meyer said. “The D-coordinator and the staff go out there and they teach pursuit. You do that every week. The most alarming thing to me was the pursuit on the two big hits.”
Even without Sayin for the foreseeable future, the Buckeyes have a chance to rebound and salvage their playoff hopes. They have four games remaining, only one of which — a home game against No. 23 Northwestern — comes against a ranked opponent.
For as many problems as Meyer witnessed against USC, he believes a spot in the Big Ten championship game is still within reach.
“The good news is, are they good enough to keep going? Absolutely,” Meyer said. “They have four games left, three at home. They control their destiny. If they win out, they’re in Indianapolis.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Urban Meyer rips Ohio State after loss to USC: 'Hell yeah, it's time to panic'
