INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Despite all that Urban Meyer’s been through in the past two weeks—really, the past three months—there the Ohio State head coach sat in the bowels of Lucas Oil Stadium, mere inches from where he was famously photographed embodying defeat a year ago. But as he fulfilled his media obligations on the eve of the Big Ten Championship Game, Meyer hardly appeared shaken, carrying the quiet confidence that took him to the top of the college football mountain.
“For me to say I didn’t think about that when I walked in here—I did,” Meyer said on Friday. “But then I moved on quickly.”
The pressure of a 24-game winning streak became too much for the Buckeyes to overcome in the conference championship game a year ago, Ohio State falling 34-24 to Michigan State. But the Buckeyes’ circumstances were certainly different back then, although in a way, they were the same.
The Buckeyes aren’t favored this weekend as they were during their last trip to the Circle City, the season-ending broken ankle suffered by quarterback J.T. Barrett helping make Wisconsin a four-point favorite, per Odds Shark. For just the fourth time in the Meyer era, Ohio State finds itself as an underdog, despite spending the 2014 regular season as the class of the Big Ten.
“I didn’t know that,” Meyer insisted earlier this week of his team’s underdog status.
But while the Buckeyes are expected to lose in the conference championship game—just as they did a…
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