Former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer is done listening to people write off the Buckeyes, and he believes his old program still has a path to the Big Ten title game despite back-to-back losses to USC and Oregon.

“Everybody’s down on Ohio State. Ohio State is still in the damn hunt! That’s what pisses me off!” Meyer said on The Triple Option, the podcast he co-hosts with Mark Ingram and Rob Stone.

What fuels Meyer’s Ohio State optimism?

Meyer leaned on the talent in Columbus while making his case. “They’re still in the hunt. They’ve still got a roster that’s phenomenal. They’ve got the best player in college football. They’re 4-2 in the Big Ten,” he said.

That player is Jeremiah Smith. The junior receiver set Ohio State’s career records for receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns in the first five weeks of this season, and he was named AP National Player of the Week after a 12-catch, 217-yard, four-touchdown game against Illinois in September.

Meyer’s defiance marks a turn from his tone over the past two weeks. After the USC loss, he told listeners, “Hell yeah, it’s time to panic. I’m panicked. I’m a Buckeye.” When the first CFP rankings slotted Ohio State at No. 12, he said the Buckeyes were “on life support.” ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum went further after the Oregon game, declaring Ohio State “dead, dead and buried.”

Ohio State’s Big Ten title path

Meyer’s argument centers on the two teams ahead of Ohio State. “And Indiana and UCLA are beatable. And they host USC this weekend,” he said, referring to Indiana’s Saturday matchup with the Trojans.

UCLA is 9-0 and 6-0 in Big Ten play in coach Bob Chesney’s first season, with a Nov. 28 rivalry game against USC still on the schedule. Indiana sits at 8-1 and 5-1.

Ohio State owns the head-to-head win over Indiana, a 19-15 victory in Bloomington on Oct. 17 that snapped the Hoosiers’ 22-game winning streak. But the Buckeyes’ losses to USC and Oregon came against two of the five other Big Ten teams sitting at 4-2, along with Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois, so any tiebreaker scenario gets crowded quickly. Ohio State already slipped behind Iowa and USC in this week’s Big Ten power rankings.

The Buckeyes need to beat Northwestern, Nebraska and Michigan and get losses from the teams above them. They’ll have to do it without quarterback Julian Sayin, who injured his throwing arm against Indiana and won’t return during the regular season, according to Ohio State coach Ryan Day. True freshman Luke Fahey has started the last two games.

Ryan Day promises accountability

Ohio State fell from No. 11 to No. 21 in this week’s AP poll after Oregon scored 38 straight points following a 14-0 Buckeyes lead. The Buckeyes lost three regular-season games for the first time since 2011, and it’s the first three-loss season of Day’s eight years in charge.

Day took responsibility after the game. “To lose three games is unacceptable, and I own that,” he said.

He also said changes are coming. “I’ve got to evaluate everything and try to come in tomorrow and figure out, with the staff, the things we’re coming up short on and figure out how to adjust those things,” Day said.

Ohio State hosts Northwestern (6-3) at noon ET Saturday on FOX, about three and a half hours before Indiana and USC kick off in Bloomington.