COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Rough, tough and looking for the right stuff at Ohio State, Urban Meyer disdains all weaknesses and tolerates no excuses. He mocks those who do not perform, occasionally saying of their explanations, "The dog ate my homework."

It is the apocryphal excuse of hundreds of schoolboys who didn't hand in their book reports and algebra problems on time.

Ryan Shazier is a 6-2, 226-pound Ohio State sophomore, a "fly and hit" guy, which is what Meyer looks for in linebackers. In 2011, Shazier had 56 tackles, 36 of them solo. Four of them were for losses, three for quarterback sacks. He also forced a fumble and blocked a punt. He started his final three games. He had a team-high 15 tackles against Penn State.

The last true freshman who was more active than Shazier for the Buckeyes was Andy Katzenmoyer, with 86 tackles in 1996.

Shazier made mistakes, but they were aggressive ones, products of the speed and recklessness Meyer saw in the player when recruiting him at Florida.

Yet in late July at the Big Ten Football Kickoff Luncheon in Chicago, Meyer said: "Think about the last 10 years in football, who's played linebacker at Ohio State. I'd put that group against any group in America, maybe in college football history. I didn't see that when I watched those guys play last year."

Coping with pain that Shazier called a "seven" on a "one-to-10 scale" in the regular-season finale at Michigan, Shazier simply fell when his knee gave out as he closed to tackle Fitzgerald Toussaint. The Wolverines gained 46 yards on the play .

But the Buckeyes were short on linebackers that day, and it was down to either Shazier or a walk-on. So Shazier stayed on the field, a brace bolstering the left knee in which he had suffered a sprained ligament in the second quarter.

"I watched that [the Michigan] game on TV, and Shazier didn't play very good," Meyer said.

A ragged chorus of reporters noted that Shazier was hurt. An Ohio State publicist piped up: "Coach, he was really hurt."

"The dog ate my homework," Meyer said. "He didn't play very well. Linebackers have to play dinged up a little bit. The great ones do."

Meyer's remarks were so at odds with the perception of Shazier as to seem cold, crude and uninformed. A coach can lose a team by such criticism of a player known to be a fully blooded flier and hitter.

Said Shazier: "[Against Michigan], I was really less than 50 percent. I was just trying to do what I could to help the team."

But Shazier said he can take the criticism.

"The linebackers were the problem with our defense last year. He [Meyer] is using that to help push us up to the next level. I like that. It's coach's style, right or wrong. He's just trying to help us out," Shazier said.

The coach must have known the circumstances and identified questioning Shazier's toughness as a motivational tool, At any rate, it has worked.

"He has had a very good fall camp," Meyer said.

Added Shazier, "Me being here for a year has really slowed the game down."

So is it maturity? Or Meyer?

Sometimes, Meyer is so blunt with young players that it is simply baffling when he soft-soaps someone older who deserves criticism.

In Chicago, the subject came up of the scholarship offer Meyer made to LeBron James, when he was a sophomore at St. Vincent-St. Mary.

"I respect him as an athlete and obviously a winner. After being around Tim Tebow and Percy Harvin, high- profile guys, I see him handle lot of those scrutinies, and he handled them well" Meyer said. "You never hear about anything off the field with him, just the way it all transitioned, the show ("The Decision"), or something," Meyer said of the former Cleveland Cavalier.

This, of course, is the Big Lie with James, advanced by his many national media apologists. The argument is that the anger the poor, shunned fans feel in Cleveland was only about the manner of James' leaving and not his passive, apathetic play against Boston before that.

"I think he's great. I love him. I was proud to have my son meet him," Meyer said.

Urban Meyer has to recruit Cleveland, a high school football gold mine in recent years. Either the coach didn't do his homework about James, or the dog ate it.