D Zone Article on Urban Meyer and Negative Recruiting
http://www.thedzone.net/2014/07/top-recruit-ohio-state-trashes-michigan…-
The whole piece uses an anonymous source to relay what happened on a recruiting trip to OSU back on May 31, especially Urban Meyer's bashing of UM. I am not familiar with the site so if it is questionable or whatever, feel free to remove this.
Some highlights (emphasis mine):
After a standard day of touring, the players and their families were brought into the Ohio State team room for a meeting. In the meeting, head coach Urban Meyer talked to the players directly about the state of Michigan, the University of Michigan, and Michigan State University. Meyer pounded several topics mostly about the University of Michigan into the players and their families’ heads, according to Anonymous. “It was in their team room. There were probably about 70 recruits and family members in there. All the coaching staff agreed with him [Urban Meyer], they loved it,” Anonymous said. “It was basically bashing over and over. They called them ‘the school up north,’ they wouldn’t even call them by their name.” Several topics were brought forward from the coaching staff during the meeting, but Meyer was the leader. “It was really Coach Meyer that was talking bad.”
A key point of the meeting was the lack of respect for the Michigan coaching staff. “They talked a lot about how [the Michigan] coaches like to blame losses on the players. And how the Ohio State coaching staff would never do that and accept their part of the loss. How the Michigan coaches wouldn’t accept accountability for something they did wrong.” “They always wanted to pin it on ‘Oh well, Devin Gardner didn’t do this, or Jeremy Gallon didn’t run fast enough on this play, or Taylor Lewan wasn’t blocking hard enough on this play.’ They were saying that the coaches are responsible for that so don’t blame that on the players. They just don’t have good enough coaches.” Paralleling the Michigan coaching staff, was the lack of player development in regards to the “high level” recruits that Michigan gets. “Another point is that the player development, from a standpoint of them having some of the best players in the country and still not being able to win more than seven games, Rose Bowl, or a National Title.”
“They spent a lot of time focusing on Michigan rather than themselves,” Anonymous said. “When we went to Michigan, they didn’t talk about Ohio State at all.”
NO! Don't go there!
I don't think the player development argument is true either.
all this shows is that Meyer doesn't have any class and attracts similarly minded players (we already know how their fanbase is).
This wouldn't make me angry if it weren't for the fact that I have literally never read a single quote from any of our coaches that disparaged a single player in an improper way.
I have also never seen a single one of our coaches use an excuse that didn't relate to the youth on our team, and even when they say that they say it's no excuse and they have to get the players they have ready. Even using that excuse, I've never seen them blame a single loss on any mistake of any player. EVER.
Seriously, listening to this guy is like listening to a politician who just lies without regret because he knows his supporters will blindly believe it, and then get away with it no matter how false he is proven to be. Sad thing about society today - facts don't matter, which bubble you live in does...
Pathetic when grown men lie to kids to try and manipulate them.
--Yes.
Unless you've ever seen a quote from Hoke saying we lost a game because Jeremy Gallon didn't do something (HAH!) then it is a farce.
Win at any cost, whether it be shading the truth or anything else. Yup, sounds about right. It is Ohio State, afterall, and that's a far cry from Michigan, fergodsake.
I think the guy behind DZone is a young kid who covers high school football around Michigan. He seems to have somewhat of a rapport with a few kids. I used to follow him on Twitter but the dude can fill up a TL in no time. That said, A) is it any surprise Meyer stoops to to name calling? B) we give our kids IPads, too. It's equivalent to a play book. Meyer simply played to the gullability of youth and proclaimed it to be a perk. Again, see A.
I follow The D Zone on Twitter, too. It's kind of a mess, but they (I'm sure it's multiple people) do have their finger on the pulse of what's going on around the state.
get it done, Michigan could go through another 3-4 year transition/tailspin. There is a lot riding on this season, and improvement must be shown.
Who knows what sells an 18 year old, but I like to think that I would have been really put off even at 18 by that sort of crap. Tell me what's good about your school and why I will like it, develop as a player, fit in, and enjoy myself. I will evaluate the other schools on my own and see what I think. If I were there as a parent, I sure as hell would tell my kid to stay away from people who approach recruiting that way.
speaking to those that wish to be defined by what they are, rather he's speaking to those that wish to be defined as what they are not. Those parents and kids that see through his message, he doesn't want them....he wants the kids with chips on their shoulders. Yet I don't see this strictly as an Urban Meyer issue, it's my impression that it's just the way OSU does and has done business at least as far back as Woody Hayes. After all, even Bo had his pair of gold pants. Urban Meyer just fits the mold of an OSU football coach like a sweater vest.
Incidently, John Cooper, by most accounts, didn't fit in the same mold as those before and after him.
I didn't have a very high opinion of Urban before he went to Columbus - and he has done nothing during his time there to improve my opinion of him.
Dear Urban,
Please stop being a big meanie head. It is hurting our feelings very much.
Sincerely,
Darker Blue
His method works for some recruits, others I'm sure can see through it. Those are the recruits that UM wants. It's pretty obvious that UM targets guys with goals both in and out of the classroom. Urban Meyer is a good to great college coach and can/will stockpile a shitload of wins but I don't think he'll ever be considered a great man or be considered a model example.
Couldn't agree more. The guys Hoke tends to recruit spend their summers *not* filling our pages with arrest reports and misdeeds. Perhaps the kind of guy that responds to this kind of recruiting doesn't fit that mold.
is a walk-on. I'm not sure how much recruiting was done there. If a player with ability wants to play for your program and pay his way to do so, I think you give him a chance. If he messes up once, you punish him accordingly and watch him closely after that.
I think the images we had of Hoke recruiting v. Meyer recruiting are beginning to show to be true. It will be interesting to see where Damien Harris winds up. He always struck me as a kid who would react better to teh postive message.
And it reflects almost exactly the conversation I had with my best friend from high school when we saw eachother at Christmas after our first terms at Michigan and Ohio State.
He: At my orientation, my RA told three Michigan jokes.
I: That's interesting, I didn't hear my RA mention Ohio State in four months.
That was a different era, as Gordon Gee's greatest 13-13 win took place that autumn after four straight UM wins, but I think that supports the larger reality: saying nasty stuff about Michigan is deeply ingrained in the OSU fan mentality, regardless of the current state of the rivalry. Dicks will be dicks. Sure would be nice to get a win though.
and by family time I mean another job on College Gameday.
"The real question is how many of those top-level recruits choose to go to Ohio State based on just the negative talk and I-Pads?"
I suppose my guess at an answer is "less than perhaps they would like to believe". If the presentation described in the article is that over-the-top about Michigan, then it probably is well past the point where good salesmanship ends and into "unintentionally comical" territory. The way it is described, it is almost the presentation an overzealous fan might give, and if coaches are trying to project that image, be it on their own head - I suspect a lot of recruits would rather hear them talk about the sort of experience they will have at your school and not sit through a PowerPoint which pushes the potential for schadenfreude and a contrived message that, in the end, may only be effective if you felt that way about Michigan in the first place.
I'm of the opinion that Urban's pitch here will only sell to kids whom they already have in the bag.
To a kid who wants to hear about OSU b/c he isn't sold yet, 20-30mins of Michigan talk is not going to be all that impressive.
That seems like a pretty powerful statement about who he held accountable.
Well it's not like you can just force players out of th --- oh.
circle of trust?
Oh my God BOOM
BOOM x 1,000,000
I mean, seriously, how can anyone think that Hoke blames the players when he fired his offensive coordinator?!
If I was Urban Meyer and wanted to say negative things about Michigan, I would think I could come up with much better arguments than those in the article. For instance:
-- "At Michigan, the classes are much harder. You are competing with people who want to be doctors and lawyers, not car salesmen and retail managers--so the work you put in to get a B at Ohio State will get you about a C- from that school up north. So if you want to play school, go ahead and sign with Michigan. You want to play football, come to Ohio State."
-- "At Ohio State, we have lots of pretty girls. Not only that, but a good percentage of them are dumb and lacking in self-esteem. That makes it very easy to get laid as a football player. Now that school up north, sure--they have their share of attractive women. Not as many as Ohio State, but some. They probably even have a handful of football groupies. But who are these ladies? Most of them are smart, highly-motivated, high on self-respect. They aren't going to just 'give it up' to some dim-witted meathead because he's got a letter jacket and a Leaders Division ring. So for most of y'all, if you want to get a piece, Columbus is where you need to be."
-- "Now Ann Arbor is what they call a 'walkable town.' Means you don't need a car to get to and from most places you'd want to go. Well, who likes walking? Me, I like driving; more specifically, I like driving free sports cars from the local dealership. So if you want to walk, go put on that winged helmet. If you want to drive, go with the Scarlet & Gray."
If you think the michigan football team doesn't have girls just as eager to "give it up", you are much mistaken
You didn't get any either, huh?
I must take this truth to be a confirmed fact since it came from Carlos Spicyweiner.
the greater the likelihood that someone paints this site with the same brush.
But the parts that aren't true aren't true.
... which are most of the parts.
I can't wait for The Great MGoPurge of 2014....
but it should be. I have never heard in all the years of watching UM football heard a coach call out a player by name, EVER. With the exception of a punter who was supposedly supposed to kick the ball rather than try and run it for a first down. I am sure had he ran and got the first down he would have been following orders. This was of during the courseof the RR years and I have never been so mad at a coaching staff since, excluding the Detroit Lions.
I don't know. It's not like we ever hear Brady say things like "if we fail, it's on us as coaches."
Just win, baby, and the rest will take care of itself. The 1990's are about to come back upon us. In the last 25 years, the series is tied 12-12-1. We are due for a run of 5 out of 6 and it starts in COLUMBUS this year!