Urban Renewal

Urban Meyer's press conference announcing his hire at Ohio State

This is a topic, that as a fan of Ohio State (I hate when people trademark "The") I have plenty of thoughts about.  Yes, it is true that Urban Meyer was the cream of the crop in coaching free-agency.  He was the best coach available, and Ohio State is one of the Top-5 best places to land if you are a college football coach.  In no order, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Michigan, Texas, USC.  These schools have no end when it comes to resources.  They will put up ungodly amounts of money to the football programs, and end up making even more than that.  So, if you're Urban Meyer, and the Ohio State job becomes available, you've got to take a look at it.  Especially considering the ties that he has: grad assistant at Ohio State and Head Coach at BGSU.

But, there are a few things that bother me about this hire.

Urban Meyer has acted a little fickle (I couldn't resist) during his coaching career.
We'll go through the career of Urban Meyer, starting in college.  Meyer went to and played football at the University of Cincinnati.  Cincy, as with any of the other 300 colleges in Ohio, is a step child to the big school in Columbus.  Anyone from Ohio, like Meyer, wants to play at Ohio State if they are going to play football.  Upon graduation from UC, and after a one year internship at high school powerhouse St. Xavier, Meyer got a grad assistant job at Ohio State.  For two years, he coaches tight ends and wide receivers at OSU under Earle Bruce.  Then bounced around for the next 13 years, Illinois State for two, Colorado State for six, and five years at Notre Dame.  2001 would be the first year that he took over a program as a head coach.

Meyer went 17-6 in his first two
years as a head coach at BG

Bowling Green would see one of the best turnarounds in NCAA history.  Obviously this guy knows what he is doing.  His new, spread offense would put Josh Harris (Westerville North grad) in the Heisman talk.  17-6 in two seasons at Bowling Green, and when rumors came about that he would leave, he denied them all, staying he wanted to stay in Bowling Green.  A few months later, he bolted for Utah.
Utah saw the same type of resurgence.  His first year there, Meyer went 10-2 and earned MWC Coach of the year.  The next year, with future first overall draft pick Alex Smith, the Utah Utes became the first "BCS Buster" and went an undefeated 12-0 including a Fiesta Bowl win over Pittsburgh.
 Same story here, both Notre Dame and Florida came calling.  He denied reports of leaving, only to accept the Florida job (surprising most because he previously coached at Notre Dame and was a strong Catholic).

Took a Utah team, and made them
nationally relevant.

Even more success at Florida, winning two national titles behind Heisman winner Tim Tebow.  The end of the 2009 season, Meyer was quietly admitted to a hospital with chest pains.  Later, he would announce that he would resign from his spot as head coach of the Gators, citing health issues and a want to be closer to his family.  The very next day, he said he would not resign, but rather take an "indefinite leave of absence."
To shorten the story, he comes back and coaches one more season and at the end of the 2010 season, decides to retire from coaching for the same reasons that he said earlier, family and health.
The 2011 season would see the problems with Ohio State and Penn State and all their issues and coaches being fired and such (another story for another blog post).  Urban Meyer was an analyst for ESPN during this season and all through the season would deny that he wanted to return to coaching, saying that he liked ESPN and liked that he was able to watch his kids play sports, and spend more time with his family.  Most people only half believed him.

The things you find on
Google images

It wasn't until the Ohio State vs. Michigan week that things started catching steam.Urban Meyer had been connected to his "dream job," coaching the Buckeyes.  And, if you didn't know already, he denied all the reports, only to take the job a week later.
It's just a little thing, but, how can you trust a guy that tells everyone he is staying all the time and that he loves the job he is in, when in the past, every time he says that, he leaves?  Especially during this time in college football where coaches are getting fired for lying, how can hiring a guy who has constantly lied during his career, be such a great thing?

The other thing, that bothers me even more: three years ago, heck eight months ago, the entire state of Ohio hated Urban Meyer.

People in northwest Ohio, where I am now a native, hated him for leaving Bowling Green.  Lying to the team and to all the fans, saying he would not leave, but ultimately did.  This lost a little trust in people in the area.  That, coupled with the success at Utah, really burned the Falcon fans.

Urban Meyer had a special relationship with all of his athletic
QBs, Harris, Smith, Tebow, and now Braxton Miller?

Then, skipping ahead to Florida, the Gators would play heavily favored Ohio State in the National championship game (in both football and basketball) in 2007.  Naturally, there is going to be a lot of smack talk and hatred there, just because he is on the other team, and that's the way Ohio State fans are.  But, once Florida completely dismantled Ohio State in that title game, almost everyone in the entire state of Ohio hated Urban Meyer.  Then when Florida beat Ohio State in the NCAA basketball title game the same year, the hatred of Florida grew again, and a lot was pinned on Urban Meyer (and Tim Tebow to be fair).  Everyone would talk crap about Urban Meyer and hated the fact that he would win so much at Florida and hating the SEC ant Tim Tebow and all that jazz.  When Meyer retired, he bought Kirk Herbstreit's old house in Upper Arlington, which is a suburb of Columbus.  This even brought fire to Herbstreit for letting it happen, but Ohio State fans hated this fact that Urban Meyer was so close to them in Columbus.
Then Jim Tressel was fired, and almost immediately, things changed in the Buckeye State.  Now fans were going to hate Urban Meyer if he DIDN'T become the next head coach for their beloved team.  Fans were calling for him to become the coach all during the season, basically writing off Fickell and not even giving him a chance.  Now that he has been hired, he is being praised as a lord.  That is disgusting.

I'm not going to lie to you and say that I didn't do my fair share of Urban Meyer hating, and I'm not saying that I don't love the hiring of Meyer.  I do.  But, the rapid change in feelings toward him just really bothers me.

Also, how can you trust that Urban Meyer is going to keep his love for football higher than his family and health problems?

Urban Meyer, Family Man

It forced him to take a "leave of absence" and forced him to retire for a year.  It's going to be tough for him to make all the right changes and to change his style and not be overwhelmed with football.  His daughter actually gave him a contract before Ohio State did.  On that contract, it said that he has to exercise at least every other day, eat three meals a day, make every effort to see her (Nicole) and his other daughter Gisela play volleyball (Nicole plays for Georgia Tech), and finally, that he limit his hours on football.  That is going to be hard.  If he thought it was a lot of work devoting to football at Florida, its only going to be more pressure and more hours spent on football at Ohio State where fans and bosses expect winning right away and BCS bowls and titles right away.  How is it going to be easier?
It will be tough, but it can be done.  I read from a sportswriter (I can't remember off the top of my head who or where) that it has been done in the past.  There was a coach who was very successful, and won many, many games, and two national championships, then retired because he was overwhelmed and felt like the job consumed him and wanted to spend more time with his family.  The same reasons Meyer did.  a couple years later, that coach returned to the same school, and since then has won even more games, and two more national championships.  That coach?  Division 1 wins leader Coach Mike Krzyzewski of Duke basketball. Coach K found the formula to balance life and basketball and was able to get his 903rd win of his career this season to become the winningest coach in division 1 basketball.  I think, for Urban Meyer to be successful in his comeback, he needs to spend a lot of time talking with Coach K, and find out that winning formula.

Balance can be achieved

A six-year contract, set to make $4 million a year, with plenty of incentives.  That's what Ohio State is giving Meyer.  Totally worth it I think.  It's a great hire, and Meyer will probably be very successful, and the recruiting will be there for him, and Ohio State will be a great football team within the next two seasons.  Ohio State made the right move, but fans still need to be a little weary.

Take it for what you will

-GP

The Beginning

Hello to those of the few people who actually choose to venture in and read what I've got to say.  Right now, you may be one of like four people, with the other three being my parents and me.  We'll see where it goes from here.

I've been thinking about doing one of these for a while now, and I figured, "what better time to start than right now?"

This will be a sports blog, hence PeterfySPN (get it?).  So, I have a lot of opinions on sports, and here you will get the full, unaltered, uncensored, and full opinion.  It's not always going to be right, hell I probably will sound stupid half the time.  But, whatever.

There is a ton of things going on in the sports world, and there are already a few topics that I want to touch up on.  So, these first couple of days, I'm sure I will have many posts.  We'll see how frequent they become later on.

Upcoming topics:
NBA Lockout Over
NBA Trades and Storylines
NFL Season
NCAA Football Bowls
NCAA Basketball
JoePa
Jim Tressel
Urban Meyer
Football Rankings
And other things...