Terrelle Pryor met with the media after Wednesday's practice and addressed a cavalcade of subjects. What advice is he getting from Troy Smith? How did he react to the criticism he faced after the Purdue game? What does he think about being the team's leading rusher? We have that and much more.
When someone becomes the starting quarterback at Ohio State, it’s like joining a fraternity for life.
And arguably the best QB in school history, Troy Smith, has been giving some advice to the current signal-caller, sophomore Terrelle Pryor.
Smith, the 2006 Heisman Trophy winner, is plenty busy himself as the backup quarterback of the Baltimore Ravens. But he rarely misses a Buckeye game on television and he’s been following Pryor’s progression very closely.
“Everything he says, I’m so glued in because I look up to Troy so much,” Pryor said. “You can’t even imagine it. So, whatever words he says, my ears are pinned open just listening and learning and just sponging it in. He has said so much stuff to me that I can’t even talk about it all, but it just makes so much sense to me. Just to hear from the type of guy like Troy and the type of man he is and the way I look up to him, it’s amazing.
“He just kept on preaching to me that, ‘At your age when I was there, I wasn’t even playing, I was sitting on the bench and watching quarterbacks throw the ball and make plays.’ He said, ‘You can be better than me.’
“We just try and connect through text messages and things like that, and whenever I feel I need to talk to him, I give him a call. And when I call, he’s always there.”
Speaking of conversations, Pryor took a big step in terms of being a leader when he stood up and addressed the offense before last Saturday’s 38-7 win over Minnesota. Even fifth-year senior offensive lineman Jim Cordle thought some type of meeting was needed between the players.
The offense was sputtering and fans were wondering if the Buckeyes would ever turn things around. Not that one solid performance against a bad Golden Gopher team is going to get OSU over the hump, but it was just what the doctor ordered last week.
Pryor reflected on the meeting he had with the offensive players and why he thought it was important to say something.
“I just think it was needed,” he said. “If Jimmy told you that, hopefully it got to some people that we have to have an urgency for now. That’s pretty much why we had that meeting.”
Close, but no cigar
Interestingly, Pryor and Smith are the only two quarterbacks in OSU history to accomplish a certain feat.
And that is passing for 200 or more yards and rushing for 100 or more yards in the same game. Pryor has done it twice (against Minnesota and Toledo this year) and Smith did it in his official coming-out-party as a sophomore against Michigan in 2004.
However, as head coach Jim Tressel mentioned on Tuesday, Pryor still didn’t grade a “winning performance” against Minnesota.
“There’s more to it than (the statistics) – running fakes and stuff like that which you need to do,” Pryor said. “Just like Coach Tressel always tells me and explains to me, ‘You need to fake them and do a little fake-out and try and take someone with you as a decoy so maybe we can break a run.’ That’s really one of the things I want to improve at.”
But Pryor did feel at ease throughout the Minnesota game. He felt he was playing “too tense” in previous weeks. Finally, he was able to relax on the field and let the game come to him.
“I just felt – like I said last week at this time – real comfortable,” he said. “That’s the same thing right now. Just the playbook was pretty good and the coaches narrowed it down and gave me a real good, comfortable playbook. I think we all felt pretty good about it.
“I feel real relaxed right now. I can’t wait to get this week over and get to Saturday. (Thursday) is a big day too because we wake up early and then go to the quarterback meeting just to learn more things and I’m always interested in learning more things.”
As for the showdown with long-time hated rival New Mexico State on Saturday (I’ll be here all week), it’s important that the Buckeyes build on the momentum they gained against Minnesota going into their tough November stretch when they will play Penn State, Iowa and Michigan. Now is the time for the offense to load up on confidence.
“Oh yeah, and we have to be at the top of our game starting (Thursday) actually,” Pryor said. “We have to have a real good practice (Thursday) just to give our coaches a good feeling because if we have a bad practice, I don’t think they’ll feel too good (turns to quarterbacks coach Nick Siciliano and smiles) and they’ll be worried and things like that. We’ve just got to pick it up.
“Even though it’s an out-of-conference game, we’ve got to treat it as it’s in-conference because this game could mean anything. Could lower our confidence, give us higher confidence. So, we need to take care of this game and then we’ll move on. As of right now, we’re preparing to take care of New Mexico State.”
Posey steps up as No. 1 target
Early in the season, it looked like junior Dane Sanzenbacher was going to emerge as Ohio State’s top wide receiver. However, sophomore DeVier Posey has exploded recently and is clearly Pryor’s go-to man.
“At the beginning of the year, he didn’t get the ball too much,” Pryor said. “Dane was getting a good amount, but it was just a mix-up. Now, it’s a mix-up too (where Sanzenbacher and Ray Small aren’t getting it enough in Pryor’s opinion).
“DeVier has been making some plays. There is no doubt that he’s been making some plays, a lot of plays.
“And our linemen, they’ve been stepping up pretty good. So, without them, we can’t make those kind of plays.
“But I think DeVier, he’s making some big plays and is breaking off routes and running crisp routes. I think he’s doing a good job.”
On one of Pryor’s touchdown passes against Minnesota, Posey actually broke off the route that was called and improvised due to the coverage. And to Pryor’s credit, he saw it and fired a deep strike.
“Yeah, it was a post – and Coach Sis said, ‘I don’t know how you saw it,’ – but it was a post route and when I was set up, I was OK and I just trusted them (the offensive line),” Pryor said. “I pretty much knew where I was going to throw it and I just said, ‘I hope he breaks that way.’ So, I threw it exactly vertical from where I was standing and my feet were set and I just hoped and trusted that he would get there and he got there.”
Pryor Q&A
Here is the rest of the Pryor interview in Q&A format:
Are you looking for Posey more now than you were earlier in the year?
“Nah, that’s the worst thing you can do,” Pryor said. “Our coaches always talk about ‘MMH’ which means ‘mind made up in huddle.’ As I come out, I just try and read the defense as much as I can and look off the defenders and then come back. Because if you have the lock – our coaches call it ‘tunnel vision’ and there are some times when I have tunnel vision. You always have tunnel vision for a real good receiver, but we have four, five receivers out there that are making plays just like DeVier. I’ve just got to read through my keys and see who is where and put the ball there.”
Is that the biggest sign of progress? That you’ve gone from “MMH” to going through your progressions?
“Pretty much, yeah,” Pryor said. “I don’t think I ever really made my mind up in the huddle – I mean, I always had Brian Robiskie and (Brian) Hartline last year and I was thinking, ‘OK, I’ve got some pretty good players.’ But I couldn’t exactly read defenses as well. I was learning and it’s still a learning process, but I was really, really learning it last year. I’m just glad I got through that last year.
“But this year, before I throw the ball, I look at them to see, ‘OK, who can take it away? Who is my movement key? Where is my guy at?’ There’s just a thousand things going through my mind and once the play breaks, you’ve got to know the coverage and know where the safeties are at and that tells you everything, pretty much.”
But safe to say the game hasn’t completely slowed down for you yet?
“Yeah, it ain’t Tom Brady or Peyton Manning,” Pryor said. (Room erupts with laughter. You would have thought Chris Rock was in there.) But I feel pretty good about the progress. I get more and more comfortable every day. I feel more comfortable throwing my deeper routes and I just feel more comfortable, period. I say that because I just keeping thinking in my mind, ‘Who can take it away?’ and that’s the main thing. Once you know who can take it away and who is the movement key, that’s big.
“And like me and Coach Tressel have been talking about all week, if you can read all of that, your footwork and mechanics will come with it. There’s some other type of routes where I have to open my hip a little more and make those types of throws. This week, we’re staying more with the kind of throws that I can make and (the passing game) is a big question mark for our team and we’re looking forward to this week.”
There seemed to be more plays last week that called for you to throw on the run on rollouts
“I can throw on the run pretty good,” Pryor said. “I also feel I can stand back there (in the pocket) and throw it pretty well, too. So, whatever the play that is called and however the play is called, I’m going to execute to the best of my abilities. However it’s called, I’ve got to do it.”
Siciliano was asked about after seemingly hitting rock bottom at Purdue if Pryor has now gotten to a good place in his overall development
“I think he has and I’m very proud about where he’s at,” Siciliano said. “I think in my heart, there’s not many guys if any that work harder than Terrelle Pryor at getting better. It’s very important to him. And on a football team, things that are important to your quarterback are important to everybody else. He goes out there to work every day. There’s not a day he goes out there that he doesn’t want to work and that’s half the battle. He’s setting a good example, very much so.
“But just like anything else, if I come to work with you guys every day, at some point we’re going to have some disagreements on, ‘Hey, I want to do it this way,’ and ‘No, we need to you do it that way.’ That happens once in a while, but that’s very slim and it’s very positive to work with him every day and he’s very receptive to everything we tell him. And as a coach, that’s everything you need.”
Pryor was also asked about the Purdue game and all the criticism he faced, but then bouncing back with a big game the following week
“I turned the ball over four times and I don’t want to bring it up,” Pryor said. “It’s a new week and we’re still chasing our dream and I don’t want to keep bringing it up. But anytime you turn the ball over four times and you come back to your home, of course people are going to be criticizing you and saying this and that and saying you should move to receiver and stuff like that. But I’m not going to listen, because like coach said, I’m going to come to work every day and I’m always going to be competitive and I’m always going to want to go get yards on our first-team defense when we battle them. I’m always mad at myself when I throw a bad ball in practice and stuff like that. I’ll always be the same (as far as my mindset) and hopefully I’ll get a lot better and a lot better in my decision making.
“So, criticism, I don’t really worry about it. It comes with the territory like I was saying last week. You’ve just got to let that stuff go by and you’ve got 10 men that you’ve got to make sure that they know that you’re up all the time. They need to know that you’re always on the go and ready to move with them. So, if they see you’re down and taking criticism, they’ll think it’s somewhat their fault. So, I can’t let that happen. As a leader, I can’t let that happen. I’ve just got to keep them happy and I’m happy with them and we’ve just got to keep on moving and keep on working.”
Are you surprised you’re the team’s leading rusher two-thirds of the way through the regular season?
“I mean, we have great runners,” Pryor said. “I have running ability. So, to make the defenses think a little bit more and make them think about a couple different stages of the offense (is beneficial for Ohio State). I’m going to run the ball and so is Boom Herron and Brandon (Saine). How are you going to guard three different things? I can throw the ball, run the ball, or hand it off. Or do an option and maybe have you tackle me and me pitch it. I’m going to keep running and running, and I’m going to keep throwing as much as they call throws and I’m going to throw it to the best of my ability. I’m going to keep running the ball and try and get a lot of yards. I set goals just to run as many as I can. Our coaches say that if I run the ball and we run the ball and win in the trenches, it’s more than likely that you’re going to win. So, that’s one of our goals to always win in the trenches and in rushing yards and no turnovers and you should win the game.”
