COLUMBUS – The 127th season of football at Ohio State began Sunday with the opening of fall training camp at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.
Sunny skies and warm temperatures greeted head coach Urban Meyer (above right) and his staff as they worked their 2016 class of recruits through a morning practice and then came back for an afternoon session with returning upperclassmen. The first full team workout was scheduled for Monday morning.
2016 Ohio State Football Schedule
Sept. 3 – Bowling Green (Noon/BTN)
Sept. 10 – Tulsa
Sept. 17 – at Oklahoma (7:30 p.m./FOX)
Sept. 24 – Off
Oct. 1 – Rutgers
Oct. 8 – Indiana
Oct. 15 – at Wisconsin (8:00 p.m. /ABC, ESPN or ESPN2)
Oct. 22 – at Penn State (8:00 p.m./ABC, ESPN or ESPN2)
Oct. 29 – Northwestern (5:00 p.m./ESPN or ESPN2)
Nov. 5 – Nebraska (8:00 p.m./ABC, ESPN or ESPN2)
Nov. 12 – at Maryland
Nov. 19 – at Michigan State
Nov. 26 – Michigan
Dec. 3 – Big Ten Championship Game
Meyer says his team will have 29 practice sessions before their opening game against Bowling Green Sept. 3. Those practices account for more than half of all the practice sessions Meyer and his team will hold during the entire season, he said.
That’s not a lot of time to prepare a group of young players.
Meyer told reporters Sunday evening that he doesn’t expect know what kind of team he has until about the 12th practice, though athleticism “won’t be an issue.”
The coaching staff has an idea who who’s going to play “but we’ve got a lot of good young players,” Meyer said.
Only six starters and 37 lettermen have returned, only 35 lettermen from 2015, the fewest ever for a start of the season for a Meyer-coached team.
The team’s “mantra” going into the fall training camp is The Edge, “where ‘average’ stops and ‘elite’ begins,” Meyer said.
He says The Edge is intended to symbolize a point where the work in practice becomes very difficult and great players persevered while average players give up.
One of those returning starters, quarterback J.T. Barrett (above left), says that is a valuable image for young players to keep in mind because it reminds them to find another reserve of strength and stamina in close games and pressure situations.
The OSU program was judged No. 1 nationally over the last 80 years by the Associated Press last week.