COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Urban Meyer's "no" was a Saturday night postgame no, not a sleep-on-it, take-the-weekend, see-where-we-are-Monday no.

He couldn't change his quarterback minutes after a 31-16 loss to Oklahoma. But he could still change his quarterback. Don't lock yourself into that no, because the Ohio State coaches have to be as curious as you are about what might happen if redshirt freshman Dwayne Haskins, with the best arm on the team, got a chance.

But it's not that easy.

Meyer dropped the phrase "life in the big city" when talking this week about freshman J.K. Dobbins taking the starting job from injured tailback Mike Weber. But with the quarterback situation, it's not any life in the city. It's the mayor.

Social media doesn't want to and won't factor that in, but J.T. Barrett the natural leader, the three-time captain, the humble teammate, makes this entirely different than anything Meyer has faced.

Barrett is a legend and also, somehow, very possibly not the man for the job.

But Meyer said no on Saturday, and when Barrett came out afterward to speak with reporters for five minutes, I asked Barrett what he thought of Meyer saying he wasn't make a quarterback change.

"I think he's confident in me," Barrett said, "understands I've been here before. Back in 2014, lost to Virginia Tech and I was 9 of 28 (actually, 9 of 29). And so, I've been here before. I didn't play that bad. But definitely didn't play up to par as far as putting us in the best situation to win. With that being said, I'm gonna go work to get better, I think just try to rally my guys and make sure that when it comes to next week, we're at our best."

The problem is that Virginia Tech in 2014 was Barrett's second career start. Oklahoma in 2017 was Barrett's 32nd. Then you knew he was on the rise. Now, you can't help but see he's not as good, throwing it, as he once was.

What you see, everyone sees. Coaches. Opponents, obviously. And teammates.

So there have to be some guys in the locker room wondering what should be done.

"I have 100 percent confidence in J.T.," said senior center and captain Billy Price, who wasn't one of them. "He has gotten us as a program to a point where most haven't. The entire program, the offense, the defense, has a lot of confidence in J.T. The coaches have confidence in him and the game plan going into next week is put J.T. in a position to win and I know our coaches are going to be working hard at it."

At the very least, Barrett must be treated with respect, and within that locker room, he will be. There is a way for all of us to appreciate the player he is and has been and still question whether he should be on the field. To dismiss his accomplishments and value to this historic program would be an undeserved insult.

But in the big city, you don't keep your job just because you're a nice guy.

"It's just trusting it, sometimes second-guessing it," Barrett said of ways he could improve. "When it comes to zone coverage, and I think that's a lot of what we're getting, it's just being able to trust the throws and having the receivers be there. So I think that's the majority of it right there."

That all sounds familiar. It's what Barrett said in the preseason he had to, and had, fixed.

"When we talked about it in the preseason, going against our defense, it was a lot more man coverage," Barrett said. "With that, sitting in zones, that's kind of the trust I'm talking about, so it's different between man and zone coverage. ... Trusting in zone and tight windows and things like that."

What's Barrett going to see the rest of his career? What he's seen the last two weeks - that zone, the look the Buckeyes have some much trouble throwing against.

Let's remember a couple things.

One is that Barrett got his starting job back in 2015 when a starting quarterback who won a national championship and ended his career with an 11-0 record as a starter was benched. Cardale Jones wasn't quite Barrett, but he was a legend of his own style.

And performance dictated a change.

Our postgame podcast on Ohio State-Oklahoma

And in 2008, Jim Tressel benched veteran Todd Boeckman, who had led the Buckeyes to the national title game the year before, for freshman Terrelle Pryor. That was difficult, but easier than this, because Boeckman wasn't Barrett, and because Pryor was the No. 1 recruit in the nation, and any other Ohio State QB option right now, no matter how enticing, is not at the Pryor level.

But I remember Tressel on that move, and it had reached a point where he saw the kind of mistakes he couldn't tolerate any longer.

Also, with injuries on the offensive line, Tressel thought Pryor was a better fit for the moment as a mobile quarterback.

That would be an interesting line of thinking here, maybe an out for Meyer to some degree. If this is how defenses are playing the Buckeyes, dropping eight men into zone coverage and daring them to throw, could Meyer present a change as necessary because of the situation?

Could he say opponents are forcing the Buckeyes to play a quarterback with a better arm, who can make those throws? He could praise Barrett for who he is as a leader, runner and operator of the offense, but put any change at the feet of the opposition.

Because you can't count on Barrett becoming that kind of thrower. Everyone has waited for that change, and it hasn't come. What Barrett said Saturday night sounded like what he said many times before, and two games in, he's still not making tight throws and letting it rip. The receivers are a huge part of that. Many times Saturday, no one was open. But that's not getting fixed overnight.

So maybe you are forced into a quarterback who has the best ability to throw them open.

That would send you away from Barrett, who was Meyer's first quarterback recruit at Ohio State. He's Meyer's Ohio State version of Tim Tebow. He's the first three-time captain in Ohio State history.

The quarterback decision in 2015, which Meyer could have handled better, was a strain on him and the entire coaching staff. But you were dealing with two quarterbacks who were vital parts of a national championship team. There were two great options, so while there was no easy decision, there was also no gut-wrenching decision. Either way, you had to sit a guy who deserved to play, and you knew it.

This is different. This is more personal, and you have to understand that matters. This is about one player.

He is everything you would want in a Buckeye. Just not everything this team needs in a quarterback.