Coming off bye weeks, Ohio State football teams are 12-9 all-time, but with a coach like Urban Meyer that record could improve this weekend.

After back-to-back close game with Indiana and Purdue, the Buckeyes (10-0) flexed their muscles in their last two games in victories against Penn State, 35-23, and Illinois, 52-22.

With taking a break from playing on the Saturday, Meyer said that a “big concern” for his team is keeping such momentum perhaps gained from the previous contests against the likes of the Nittany Lions and Fighting Illini.

“We’re very worried about that,” Meyer said Monday. “A lot of coaches bring them out and do shorts workout or something like that. We’re full pad. Probably our most physical practice of the week will be today.”

Senior defensive lineman John Simon said a lot of his teammates needed time to rest because of the toll that the season takes on the players’ bodies.

“I think the biggest thing is getting back into the swing of things when you come back and I think we did a tremendous job of that today getting after it,” Simon said Monday.

Getting after it, arguably, might be easy for the Buckeyes, according to OSU cornerbacks coach Kerry Coombs.

Coombs called Meyer a “master motivator” during the Monday’s weekly press conference.

“Every week he focuses on a different thing and the theme changes and it goes right to the heart of the players. So, it becomes very little about our opponent and much more so about us,” Coombs said.

Meyer has proven he has a way of motivating his team for any game with a career record of 114-23. 

When Meyer has more than one week to prepare for an opponent he has a record of 32-2 over his 11-year head-coaching career.

At Florida, where Meyer won two national championships, he was 19-1 under such aforementioned circumstances. 

Of the 120 official and four transitional members of the Football Championship Subdivision, OSU was one of 18 teams that played their 10th game the week of Nov. 3.

“Week 11 isn’t the greatest week ever to have a bye week but being 10-0 I guess it came at a good time for us,” Boren said.

“You could tell there was a sense of excitement and guys got away mentally and we’re on a two week season now.”