Now that it's officially official, we step back and try and take in what this means. If you're Greg Doyel, you've practically gone into the bathroom and rubbed one out; if you're Florida fan, you're rummaging through the storage shed for a pitchfork and a torch. And if you scour the Internet for all of about 11 seconds, you'll find opinions that run the gamut between the two.
While I am geeked at the thought of Urban Meyer stalking the sidelines in Scarlet and Gray, I'm not jumping into the Zealot Wing of the OSU pool and think that the next three BCS titles are OSU's by default. Let me be clear about a few things:
1) Urban Meyer is a great, great coach, and he automatically puts OSU back near the top, both in the conference and nationally.
2) Meyer is a ridiculous recruiter, and will bring premier talent to the Buckeyes.
3) Those two things don't necessarily mean he will immediately bring OSU a B1G title, much less a National Championship.
Over at The Daily Norseman, I do a piece where I include a music video that fits the mood. In my two years of doing that over there, I've never had a more perfect video than I do for this situation and this story.
So, who says you can't go home?
With every step I take I know that I'm not alone
You take the home from the boy, but not the boy from his home
These are my streets, the only life I've ever known,
who says you can't go home
Let's do this, after the jump.
With all the excitement over Meyer's signing, and there's plenty (and count me excited), there are a few things that I think we need to point out, and how maybe, as a fanbase, we need to temper our expectations just a bit while reveling in our collective giddiness.
If you're from the fire-breathing zealot wing of the fan base, you might not like this article, so there's your disclaimer.
I've got a few Michigan fan and/or OSU hater buddies, and none of them like the hire, which means I love it all the more. Once you get through the obligatory smack talk, their reasoning boils down to a couple things:
He might not last five years, and he'll run his spread and his defense as incompetently as RichRod did. Because the Spread can't work in the B1G.
If you're wanting to hang your hat on Urban Meyer not succeeding, there are things that you can hang your hat on, but those aren't it. If those were the two big barriers to Urban Meyer and ridiculous, unbridled success, OSU would be getting ready to go on a run as epic as Tressel's, only with more national championships.
Urban Meyer will probably use Braxton Miller much in the same way that Tressel used Troy Smith and Terrelle Pryor, with just as much success. With 10 guys returning on defense, the Silver Bullets will be back to being a top notch defense, because I am of the belief he will hire a very good defensive coordinator. Meyer is a guy that gets what it means to be the football coach at Ohio State, and will be prepared to play and beat Michigan every year.
No, if anything will bring Meyer down, it will be the collective psyche of the Ohio State fanbase. I was asked how long we'll give Urban Meyer to turn around something that isn't that far off to begin with, and I'm thinking not long at all. As in like, 'Beat Michigan, win the big Ten, and then the BCS title next year Kthxby' impatient.
This is where Jim Tressel's success and legacy could come back to really hurt Meyer...and John Coopper's lack thereof, for that matter. If anyone could keep up with Tressel's BCS and UM streak, it's Meyer, but Tressel was also the recipient of very good fortune his last 5 years in Columbus. There was no conference championship game, Michigan decided to hire Rich Rodriguez, and the added benefit to that was a decided recruiting and coaching
advantage that made the talent gap between UM and OSU as lopsided as it has been in my lifetime. Hoke closed the talent and coaching gap in one year, and winning a championship with the new divisional format is
going to be difficult. The days of losing to Wisconsin and then being co-champion with them and MSU is over.
Add the fact that we could very well see a rematch or two between Michigan and Ohio State in a conference championship game, and a scenario of back to back losses to UM that costs a BCS appearance and possible national championship exists--and will be met with a level of apoplexy the likes we have never seen.
What I mean to say is the OSU fanbase will flip the fuck out.
And this is where the Tressel/Cooper legacies come in to play. Win now, and don't lose to Michigan. Or you're gone. It's bullshit, but that's the way it is. People will grumble if he doesn't beat UM and win the conference
next year, and will be in melt down mode if he doesn't in two years. Will that collective shitstorm run Meyer out of town? I hope not, but you never know.
John Cooper's 2-10-1 scarred us OSU fans as much as Tressel's 9*-1 revived us, and Meyer will have to live with both.
I hope he can., and I hope we allow him to.