Ohio State Football: How Is Urban Meyer Keeping the Buckeyes Motivated?

So far, so good for Urban Meyer as his Buckeyes are a perfect 2-0 in his first season as the head coach.

He has the Buckeyes playing angry football (which is a staple of Meyer teams) and the offense looking more like, well, an actual offense. Something OSU fans are not used to seeing.

The biggest question for Meyer's first year is how he plans on keeping the Buckeyes motivated since there isn't too much to play for this year due to NCAA sanctions.

Ohio State cannot play for a Big Ten championship or in a bowl game, even though the Buckeyes look like they could be the favorite for the Leaders Division.

The Big Ten threw a new wrinkle into the equation when they announced the Buckeyes could win the Leaders Division and receive a trophy for doing so. It's similar to what happened with USC last year. The Trojans won their division but were ineligible for the Pac-12 Championship Game; UCLA got the bid instead and was eventually smoked by Oregon.

There is some incentive for Ohio State to win something tangible, but the thought is that Meyer is after something more.

He continues putting pressure on his players and challenging them to never just accept where they finished the last game.

Everything is a competition under Meyer. Everything.

His mindset is to keep his players from being complacent.

It's refreshing to see Meyer's brutal honesty and candidness because of how different it is from Jim Tressel's stoicness.

He knows what he wants out of his football team and he brings an aggressive mentality that has already created a new culture around the OSU football program.

Among the requirements of this job for Meyer is to win a national championship, something he has to wait a year to do.

Even if OSU was eligible for it this year, they don't look like a team that could compete for a title just yet.

They've looked a year away for a few weeks. They're good, just not great...yet.

That's what Meyer is building towards this year. That's what he's trying to mentally condition his players to believe in.

2013 is the year Ohio State, Meyer and everyone around the program seems to be focusing on.

The promise that the 2012 team shows both in terms of physical skill and mental toughness will go a long way towards reaching that goal. You can't ask for much greater motivation. 

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