The Urban Meyer Effect

I’m a Gator fan, for the record.

His biggest problems in recruiting, to me, are:

1) Star chasing. He’s a big believer in momentum with recruiting, and he loves nothing more than an avalanche of 4/5* guys all rolling in at once. It creates a buzz that he can then sell the remaining spots on. It works, but at Florida he often ended up with guys that really (IMO, here) didn’t do their due diligence on UF. I think that’s one of the main reasons we’ve had problems with transfers and keeping up the scholarship numbers (Meyer did not oversign at UF).

2) Recruits of questionable character. Normally I’m the last person to care about what touble a kid got into in HS (within reason), but when you’ve got to kick out a handful of players every year, it becomes a serious problem with depth. Not to mention the consistent negative headlines and everything else.

3) Speed obsession. Meyer loves fast guys. “So do I!”, you’re thinking. No, you don’t. Not like Meyer loves fast guys. There is nothing inherently wrong with a bunch of speed merchants on the roster, but when you end up with dozens of diminutive blazers, and basically no bruisers or anyone of physical significance…it can cause problems. Specifically, it causes problems with massive teams that want to pound you into submission. I’m basically talking about Alabama, here. This was such an issue, there are more than a few Gators who believe that one of, if not the main reason Meyer left UF was to escape the machine in Tuscaloosa. I don’t really buy that entirely, but there is some truth to it. His system broke down against Saban to a degree that no other defense could manage. Perhaps it’s silly to expect anything else against Saban, but it was extremely disconcerting to most Gators, and probably to Meyer himself.

The main reason UF struggled with Bama was our abject lack of size. All the speed in the world counts for nothing if you’re being physically manhandled for 60 minutes. Meyer’s reluctance to recruit playmakers other than the Percy Harvin mold was the main reason for this deficiency.

4) Lastly, his system requires a unique type of QB to truly work. Luckily for the Buckeyes, it appears that you have a QB already that more or less fills the Tebow/Cam Newton role. The problem is (as it was for Florida), what happens when he’s gone. Newton was supposed to take over for Tebow, but then…uhh…well, let’s just say it didn’t quite go according to plan. The biggest concern for the Buckeyes is that, although he was UF’s coach almost into the year 2011, the last blue chip QB Meyer recruited to UF was in 2007. That’s the reason why we were stuck throwing out a true freshman against LSU in Death Valley this season. There was the class with Brantley and Newton in 2007, and then nothing for the rest of his tenure.

I have no idea why or how that happened, but it should be something to watch out for in Columbus.

KARMA is a BITCH. Poaching recruits that are already committed to other B1G schools only opens the door for others to do it to you.

OSU is going to have the best recruiting classes in the BIG on a pretty consistent basis and that BIG schools are going to battle for some of the same players.

groundbreaking developments here.

I know I can be far too diplomatic sometimes, but I think we should celebrate the concept of Ted’s article. Ted’s excited, why get mad at that? He’s got a brand new coach and a new philosophy on recruiting and a new spread formation. That’s going to be exciting to see. It’s a long offseason and Luke Fickell Mania wasn’t going to sustain us.

This isn’t an OSU site (thank God) and I think what we try to do here is give you a look at the feeling of each school towards there football program. Sometimes we overlap, sometimes we don’t. Ted’s piece does a couple of things: 1) Shows you what you’re going to be dealing with in c-bus for awhile, or until Urban leaves in 2015, 2) makes you hate OSU even more deeply (is that a bad thing??). So I think it’s a fun piece.

And please don’t call us ATO Jr. I’d rather you kick me in the balls and steal my car.

Let’s not forget that Schutt was originally an OSU commit. Urban getting him away from his PSU "commitment" wasn’t so much stealing as it was getting him to recommit to OSU. Kid bailed on OSU, presumably, because of Tatgate. Then you will recall he immediately pledged allegiance to the Domers. Then again he waivered and wanted to be a Nittany Lion until the Sandusky situation exploded everything. And now he’s back to square one at Ohio State. Getting this kid back isn’t exactly a coup.

Now if Camren Williams decommits from PSU for Urbz, that is a legitimate steal, with a healthy dose of stupidity from PSU to boot. The kid loves him some PSU but the school fired the head coach, the rest of the staff is in jeopardy, and there isn’t even a whiff of who the next guy might be and when he’ll be hired. Prime time for other coaches to do some thieving.

…one of those poached recruits will bring a screaming case of herpes to Columbus and infect everybody in the football building.

As it has to do with Sandusky.

I ask with all due respect. If this isn’t just another “OHIO STATE WEEEEEE!!!” post, was there another point to the post?

As a B1G guy now living in Florida who married into season tix at The Swamp, I can tell you that OSU got one helluva coach/recruiter who is a little crazy and sees the "good" in every kid he recruits. (Read: willing to forgive past sins based upon a good 40 time.) Victories go up when Urban comes to town, so do arrests. If you’re willing to make that trade, he’s your guy. Not judging, just saying.

He’s kind of like the really crazy girl that you date for a few months because she is soooo hot. She bursts in and causes a lot of excitement. You’re the envy of other guys because she with you, but only you know the constant headaches that she brings. You put up with the headaches because you can’t argue with the fact that she looks far better than any girl you’ve ever been seen with and you’re buddies would question your sanity if you dumped her. Then she leaves as quickly as she came, leaving you with feelings of both "how could she do that to me" and "thank god she’s gone".

And make no mistake, Urban will leave as quickly as he came.

I think a trained chimp could get 4 and 5 star guys to come there.

since ’Nam

I mean, that really got out of hand.

//Ron Burgundy’d