Urban Meyer Penn State week press conference: Big Ten OPOTW J.T. Barrett not a champion

Fresh off of an emphatic victory over Rutgers in the two teams' first ever meeting on the football field, Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer spoke to the gathered media at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center at The Ohio State University.

Meyer addressed this past weekend's game, the forthcoming contest at Penn State amongst numerous other topics of interest. Here were some of the highlights from this weekly press conference:

-- Meyer led off by mentioning that Ohio State leads the nation in attendance.

-- Meyer said Evan Spencer is one of the champions; "hard to say he's not one of our MVPs the way he's playing right now." "He stars on kickoff right now. He was one of our main guys on punt ... I just trust him with everything. It's the point where we're trying to find ways to reward him."

-- Jalin Marshall, Jeff Heuerman, Taylor Decker, Pat Elflein, and Jacoby Boren were also champions. Ezekiel Elliott was the offensive player of the week even though J.T. was the conference player of the week. "[J.T.] could've played a lot better."

-- "Offensively we could've played a lot better. That was not one of our great days".

-- Mike Bennett, Joey Bosa, Tyvis Powell, and Josh Perry were champions on defense. Doran Grant had his best game as a Buckeye.

-- Meyer mentions Dante Booker Jr was also injured in addition to Devan Bogard. They're going to speak today about how to fill in those units.

-- "I love coaching this team," when asked how happy he is with where the team is right now. Meyer loves that Nick Vannett and J.T. Barrett weren't named champions this week.

-- Meyer mentions that Penn State has the No. 1 rush defense. "Very, very well coached up front. Good personnel."

-- "On offense, obviously we've got a lot of respect for Hackenberg." Says that Hack is playing very well despite the stats. "They've got a boat load of tight ends and they try to play them all."

-- "When you see graded down, you don't grade him down. You coach him to throw the ball better." Mentions his criticism of Barrett are related to illegal procedure penalties and a few missed opportunities (including a potential touchdown).

-- "Obviously 110 is different than 50 something," Meyer said of comparing Penn State's atmosphere to Maryland's, their other road test this season so far.

-- Meyer says Jacoby Boren rolled his ankle against Rutgers but should be fine against Penn State.

-- "On the surface, I think [Vrabel and Larry Johnson] are very similar guys."

-- Meyer said OSU played 10 defensive linemen against Rutgers but "that didn't work well"

-- "There are very minimal differences between our two tight ends"

-- "Michael Hill did show something. Larry Johnson feels better about him right now"

-- "Rutgers was a step up [in terms of degree of difficulty of the opposition]. We did not, the last two weeks, we have not played as good up front offensively as we expect. That will really surface this week. We have to play better on the offensive line than we did Saturday."

-- In terms of in-game adjustments, Meyer said "You're getting paid a lot of money. You're at Ohio State." Clarified those kind of things are expectations

-- Meyer said the play sheet is 70% greater now than it was against Navy due to the offense as a whole gaining reps and experience.

-- Meyer stated that Dontre Wilson is "fine", despite being sidelined against Rutgers. "He's cleared."

-- Meyer said that because of Penn State's off week before this game, he expects a few new wrinkles.

-- Meyer said Penn State's defense is different than the one Ohio State put up 63 on last year.

-- The team's not worried about looking forward to Michigan State. He might be if they were playing a bad team, but there's no concern with the challenge Penn State presents.