Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer admits he can be hard on offensive linemen, and the group he inherited from the previous staff quickly ended up in his crosshairs when he took charge in January.

Unproductive through most of their careers. A lack of discipline on and off the field. Bodies that normally aren’t the kind that show up barechested on the cover of Men’s Health Magazine.

But the unit has responded to every Meyer challenge, and he paid them a supreme compliment after watching them blow defenders off the ball in a 17-16 win last week at Michigan State, which fields one of the top defenses. He named the five starters — center Corey Linsley, guards Andrew Norwell and Marcus Hall and tackles Jack Mewhort and Reid Fragel — the team’s offensive players of the game.

Asked what he sees in them now, Meyer said: “Toughness.”

He added: “Those five guys are locked and loaded. They’re together, well-coached, and they found a way to rush for 200 yards against a stout team that doesn’t give up much rushing yardage.”

The Buckeyes have recruited a slew of four- and five-star offensive linemen over the years, but many were regarded as underachievers by the time they finished their college careers.

OSU landed three of the top six line prospects nationally in 2008 in center Michael Brewster and tackles Mike Adams and J.B. Shugarts, but the team finished a dismal 11th in the Big Ten and 107th out of 120 FBS teams in total offense with that trio playing as seniors last season.

While they reached a new low in 2011, the Buckeyes seldom fielded overpowering offenses during the Jim Tressel regime. Part of that was because of Tressel’s preference for low-turnover, field-position battles, but offensive line coach Jim Bollman also was a popular target for OSU fans.

In the last 10 years, the Buckeyes finished better than sixth in the Big Ten in total offense only twice: in 2006 when quarterback Troy Smith was having a Heisman Trophy season and 2010 when QB Terrelle Pryor could be counted on to pile up yardage solely with his athleticism.

Bollman, now at Boston College, was known as a technician who took a cerebral approach. New line coach Ed Warinner, whom Meyer plucked from Notre Dame, has more of an attacking style.

“Our whole philosophy now is to just get from point A to point B as fast as your can — just do your job,” Mewhort said. “It’s definitely simplified. If you’re relentless and you can go from point A to point B, that’s all they ask of you.”

The line was at its best in the final 4:10 against Michigan State. Clinging to a one-point lead, the Buckeyes overpowered the Spartans’ front seven and churned out three first downs to kill the clock with quarterback Braxton Miller and running back Carlos Hyde taking turns carrying the ball.

“They kind of know they had been a group that was picked on,” Warinner said. “I think that was a scab that was healing, and I think they were pretty pleased they were able to step up and make a huge contribution and start to push back a little bit.

“It’s just that attitude that we’re not going to be pushed around anymore and we’re going to be able to battle and fight and help our team win games. And it’s not always going to have to be Braxton making a play for us to win. We can ride the offensive line a little bit — and the running backs and the tight ends — and pound that thing in there when we need to.”

Meyer has been ecstatic with the development of Fragel, who was switched from tight end to right tackle this year and put on 30 pounds to meet the demands of the position.

He was the last of the five to claim a starting spot, having been in a training camp battle with freshman Taylor Decker of Vandalia. But the 6-foot-8, 310-pound senior neutralized MSU star defensive end William Gholston during their match-ups and contributed mightily to the team’s total of 15 pancake blocks.

”Reid Fragel has become an offensive lineman,” Meyer said. “He wasn’t an offensive lineman at first. Who are we kidding? He was a tight end, trying to figure it out. His last two games, he’s now an Ohio State offensive lineman. When you say that around here, that’s powerful stuff. There have been some great offensive linemen throughout the years.”

One of them was Jim Lachey, a star in the 1980s and the longtime radio analyst for Buckeye games. An 11-year NFL player — and one of the famed Washington Redskins linemen known as the Hogs during a Super Bowl title run — the St. Henry native lauded Fragel and his mates for coming through against the Spartans, especially during that final 4:10.

“Everybody in the stadium knew what we were going to do, yet we got it done,” Lachey said. “That’s a badge of honor for those guys. I saw some pancakes. I saw some extended blocks. That confidence you get as an offensive line when that happens, you feel like, hey, you can go against anybody. That opens everything up.”

Lachey also is a fan of the return of physical line play under Warinner.

“There’s a lot of different ways in football, as they say, to skin a cat. Some guys like routes this way, some guys like steps this way — and sometimes they’re effective. Coach Bollman was effective with his running game, but sometimes it failed in big games,” Lachey said.

“I think what we see is what I’ve been taught. I had (former OSU head coach) Earle Bruce. I had Glen Mason and Bill Myles, two of the best line coaches. I had Dave Levy with the Chargers and Jim Hanifan and Joe Bugle with the Redskins (as line coaches), and all those guys were doing the same thing that Ed has taught — coming off the ball, double-teaming, securing the line of scrimmage and getting movement.

“To come off the ball, hit someone, lower your pads — that’s just the way football is meant to be played for offensive linemen. And I think we’re doing that again.”