OSU coach Urban Meyer during a game against Rutgers on Oct. 24 at High Point Solutions Stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey. Credit: Lantern file photo

OSU coach Urban Meyer during a game against Rutgers on Oct. 24 at High Point Solutions Stadium in Piscataway, New Jersey.
Credit: Lantern file photo

This past Monday, Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer spoke about getting his team “game ready.” One week before game preparation begins for the team’s Sept. 3 game against Bowling Green, Meyer has made it clear to his guys that this week the Buckeyes are in full “Code Green.”

Being Code Green is best explained as the moment when a player is completely game ready. It’s a system that the coaching staff is using to evaluate how equipped a player is with knowledge of the game plan they are implementing and then their ability to execute it when the time comes.

Code Green is not a mantra that the Buckeyes are throwing around loosely. It’s a process that the program is buying into from top to bottom. It’s methods like this that have led to national championships in the team’s history, according to sophomore defensive lineman Sam Hubbard, and failing to buy into the process leads to the team not being able to improve.

“I’m code green on the punt team, ready to go,” Hubbard said. “Defensive line wise, none of us are Code Green yet. We still have things we have to work on and we have ten days to do that.”

Hubbard said that this type of preparation isn’t very different from the preparation he had to do when he was forced to step in for the then-suspended junior defensive lineman Joey Bosa, in the Buckeyes’ season opener last season.

Newly named starter and junior offensive lineman Jamarco Jones, said that he also is not “Code Green” and that the team is being graded everyday on their game readiness until the coaching staff decides to give them the green light.

Whether it’s about getting past “The Edge,” in “the Year of the Wolves,” or now emerging into “Code Green” week, Meyer and company are looking to get one step closer to being game ready.

“We have it on every aspect of our game,” Hubbard said when asked what Code Green meant. “That is what I’m working for, to be game ready.”