Urban Meyer retired/quit as the head coach of Florida to spend more time with his family and address some health issues. He’s from Ohio and started off his career as a Grad assistant at OSU. It would be surprising to see him come back so soon, but apparently OSU has always been at the top of his list for coaching gigs.
As a Buckeye fan, all I can say is “God, I hope this is true”.
He’s vigorously denying it, therefore it must be true.
Dunno, unlike most situations Meyer isn’t currently an HC anywhere. So it doesn’t make as much sense to deny that he’s even been in discussions with them.
Everyone was saying the same thing about Les Miles to Michigan until it ended up that hey, he wasn’t going to Michigan. I think most of that buzz was just born of Michigan fans wishful thinking. Potentially that’s what we’re looking at with Urban Meyer, too (albeit Buckeye fans wishful thinking.)
Nothing leaked and nothing quoted means anything in college sports, trying to gauge the veracity of this stuff is akin to reading the future by analyzing bird bones.
He has pretty much acknowledged that he’s seriously considering the job, and ESPN is announcing that Meyer has asked out of his broadcasting duties for this weekend. I’m not sure how I feel about the guy on a personal level. You expect coaches to lie about jobs, but Meyer quit at Florida because the stresses of the job were hurting his health - then he came back, coached another season, and quit again because of his health and his family. Now he’s apparently going to get back in the game after all of a year off. It’s one thing to be Brett Favre and not be sure if you want to play or coach or not. It’s another to say you can’t because of your health and family concerns, and then decide those things maybe aren’t such a big deal.
I’ll bet on the side of Meyer taking the job. Both sides, OSU and Meyer are big enough whores to think they can make it work despite the baggage. OSU has so much recruiting pull that Meyer probably has reason to believe that even if he follows the rules he can produce a winner. That may be the case.
Penn State would probably love Meyer but they have to come out of their current situation looking squeaky clean. OSU has a little more wiggle room.
Top level coaches, which Meyer is, don’t like sitting on the sidelines. Sometimes the stress gets to them, they take time off, then they begin to think that they would rather die in the saddle than sit idle. No matter what, they all think they have more left in them. They are as bad as boxers.
Meyer is also from Ohio and started his coaching career at Ohio State. There’s some reason to believe that this is sort of a dream job for him. Though, I do agree that returning one year after retiring for health reasons is a bit quick. But then again, these head coaches are competitive people, and it’s reasonable to believe that his health is better, and he wants back in.
Oh yeah, and he’s going to get a shitload more money.
Pretty excited about the prospect of Meyer coming to Ohio State. When he left Florida, he may have figured he’d have a few years before Tressel packed it in. There was talk that the contract extension Tressel signed through 2014 would be his last.
But no one expected what happened in the off season creating the opening. So Urban’s chance is now if this is the job he really wants. And he’s got 40 million reasons to come back now. I think it’s for real from everything that I have read.
For a while I thought that Fickell was the heir apparent (he got a fat raise at the same time that Tressel re-upped). But the team hasn’t really had a ton of success this year and Urban could be the guy to take Braxton Miller to the next level. I dont think Luke is a lousy coach, but he’s green and tOSU is not a place for a green HC. Whatever happens I hope Fickell is taken care of.