"Report: Mounting 'Friction' and Tension Building Between Urban Meyer, Ohio State"
I think this is his last year, folks. Whether this stuff is true or not, these kind of "whisper campaigns" often presage a change on the horizon. If I had to bet at this minute, I'd say we are seeing Urban's last season at OSU. The only question now is, do they even miss a beat, or will their exceptional recruiting plus Ryan Day as HC? The guy has never been an HC, as far as I know, outside this year as "acting" HC during Urban's suspension...
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2802296-report-mounting-friction-and-tension-building-between-urban-meyer-ohio-state
October 23rd, 2018 at 11:28 AM ^
Yeah, my main memory of that game was some dude standing in front of us with a Buckeye jersey and one of those nutlaces and he's talking shit all the way up until M scores its first TD. Then he just says, "shit." And the way he said it, with such deflation, such resignation, it was just glorious. Never has the word "shit" sounded so beautiful.
I don't remember how much longer he stuck around. But there was a point in probably the late third quarter when M was up 21-0 or 28-0 that Cooper did a surrender punt and that was really when it first dawned on me that, "dang--M is really gonna win this game." I remember looking for Mr. Shit and he wasn't there anymore.
October 23rd, 2018 at 10:51 AM ^
When you lose your game hasn't made a difference.
Georgia got their asses handed to them by Auburn last year in November but still went to the playoff.
Alabama lost their final game of the season to Auburn but still went to the playoff.
Clemson lost at home to Pitt in November two years ago and went to the playoff.
Sparty lost to Nebraska in November in 2015 and went to the playoff. *Hurl*
Washington lost to USC in November in 2016 and went to the playoff.
If you win your conference and Notre Dame isn't a factor, it doesn't seem to matter when you lose...unless your name is Alabama, and you're in no matter what you do.
October 23rd, 2018 at 9:57 AM ^
Luke Fickell
However he's done a decent job in Cinci. Better than I would have expected.
October 23rd, 2018 at 10:44 AM ^
Day doesn't strike me as a recruiter. He's never been a Head Coach outside of this year, I'm fairly certain, at least not to a 'name' program. He has a good resume but so do a lot of guys. If they hire him, I think he'll do okay with Urbs' guys but won't recruit like he did; I give him two years before he's let go but by then, with back to back to back losses to Michigan, as well as losses to several other schools, and a loss in the Music City Bowl, the damage is done, buah-hahaha!
October 23rd, 2018 at 9:13 AM ^
Can I just say that if OSU ends the season with 2 losses and fires their coach, they better suck for a long time because fuck that entitlement.
October 23rd, 2018 at 9:32 AM ^
Right? You'd think that a 77-9 record with playoff championships would garner some runway for a down year, or two. He probably used a lot of that runway with Zach Smith, but still...
October 23rd, 2018 at 9:15 AM ^
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when at first we practice to deceive.
October 23rd, 2018 at 9:21 AM ^
All I care about is beating OSU this year. Urban can stay or go, they can lose another game or three. Doesn’t matter. Just beat them.
October 23rd, 2018 at 9:22 AM ^
Feels like everyone is excitable after that asspounding, but reality is the dude is 77-9 at OSU. Getting rid of him would make zero sense even if he loses 4 games this year, which isn't happening.
October 23rd, 2018 at 9:25 AM ^
Every time they lose a game half of their fans want him fired. It's really odd.
October 23rd, 2018 at 9:29 AM ^
And they say Michigan fans are an entitled fan base...we are, really, but not to this degree.
October 23rd, 2018 at 9:35 AM ^
I know. He is 77-9 at OSU. He has won at least 11 games every year there. He's won a national championship. They contend at the highest level every year. He has never lost to Michigan.
For comparison, I think UM has won 11 games once in the past 20 years.
Yet the fan base seems to be sick of him, for football reasons (i.e., not him being lying fraud and enabler of criminals).
Fans are crazy.
October 23rd, 2018 at 10:27 AM ^
All true.
Yet...OSU is the only school recently that has recruiting comparable to Alabama.
But Alabama has done much better. Several national championships. Meyer has one at OSU.
When Alabama loses it is always close and/or a fluke. OSU has been blown out by Clemson (shut out), Oklahoma (in Columbus), Iowa and now Purdue. Alabama never loses like that.
In the end there is no rational argument for thinking OSU's next coach would have more success than Meyer has had.
But I think their fans see OSU losing head scratcher blow outs, falling short of Alabama level results, and think something is wrong.
October 23rd, 2018 at 10:36 AM ^
The expectation of many (but certainly not all) OSU fans is that they should win the national championship every year. My memory is that you could find people talking about firing Tressel after each one of his rare losses. I'm not surprised they're reacting this way right now. OSU is one of those programs that would win every game if only their gosh darn coaches didn't get in the way.
The above having been said, Gene Smith - think what you will of him - is not that dumb. I can't believe the OSU athletic department is anywhere close to wanting Meyer gone.
October 23rd, 2018 at 1:39 PM ^
Which boggles my mind that Cooper lasted as long as he did there. It took him 6 years to win a big ten title and seven to beat Michigan. That would never fly with them now.
October 23rd, 2018 at 4:43 PM ^
I remember at The Game in '91 I was sitting amongst a a bunch of OSU fans. They were saying before the game that they were kind of hoping OSU would lose that game so Cooper would get fired. I let them know that he had already agreed to an extension that morning, and that he wasn't going anywhere. The looks on those faces were priceless.
October 23rd, 2018 at 9:30 AM ^
It doesn't make sense, but what can they do, give him another season to unravel further? (I wouldn't mind)
With OSU's issues Michigan isn't the only loss they are facing.
October 23rd, 2018 at 10:16 AM ^
Maybe - maybe - they've decided the bad publicity of having a coach who enabled abuse wasn't worth it after all.
October 23rd, 2018 at 1:35 PM ^
He could lose his next 14 games in a row and still have a better win percentage than JH to date. We are 7-1 with a championship-caliber season, but our 2018 win % is still lower than Urban’s career at OSU.
Not comparing the 2 coaches or the situations that they inherited - just showing the ridiculous expectations of the Buckeyes after a long run of success. They’re beyond spoiled.
October 23rd, 2018 at 9:23 AM ^
I guess Urban has a half-life of about 2-3 years, any longer leads to serious decay.
October 23rd, 2018 at 9:25 AM ^
I find it impossible to believe he could be on the hot seat over one blowout loss. The guy wins football games. Period. 2 losses in a season is a disappointing year for OSU under Meyer. We have yet to have a season with only 2 losses under Harbaugh.
Heck, he only solidified his job when the Zach Smith scandal broke.
He's only leaving O$U if that is what he wants. He calls the shots down there.
October 23rd, 2018 at 10:17 AM ^
Agreed, I think attributing it to one loss is overreacting.
It seems more to be from the rumors early in the season that he feels that OSU betrayed him by making take the tiniest bit of responsibility for the Zac Smith fallout, and that he's essentially been burning every bridge since then.
I think he still keeps his job, even if he loses to us, and in a bowl game. I think OSU has made him bigger than the program by not firing him this off-season, so they can grumble all they want, but they would never actually pull the trigger.
October 23rd, 2018 at 9:28 AM ^
Don't believe it for a minute...OSU stumbles like this once a season and they always come back. UM is a winning coach and if he wins out all this shit will be forgotten about.
October 23rd, 2018 at 10:57 AM ^
Flagged for unacceptable use of UM.
15 yard penalty and ejection from the remainder of this game and first half of the next.
October 23rd, 2018 at 9:34 AM ^
These bastards are like the only blue blood program to not have gone through an extended rebuilding period. I hope their time has come....
October 23rd, 2018 at 9:42 AM ^
We’ll see what happens. Not predicting anything, but it appears the stress has been weighing down on him this season, and even though OSU has all the talent in the world, something just isn’t quite right with them this season.
That being said, if he loses to Michigan this season, I could imagine a scenario where he decides to retire again. He hates losing more than he loves winning, and it’s hard not to imagine OSU fans being up in arms about the idea of losing to us.
October 23rd, 2018 at 9:42 AM ^
OSU would be crazy to let him go. They already sold their soul to the devil, may as well dance with him too.
Of course if OSU were a serious institution, they would have already fired the lying hypocrite.
October 23rd, 2018 at 9:44 AM ^
Haskins has zero threat to run, he’s a statue. That’s not going to work when the rest of the running game can’t get rolling. JT was a threat every play.
October 23rd, 2018 at 9:47 AM ^
How has nobody observed yet that the #1 “source” for this story is a football scoop story?
October 23rd, 2018 at 9:48 AM ^
And just think, OSU fans were saying Harbaugh would be back in the NFL by now.
October 23rd, 2018 at 9:51 AM ^
Wondering if Urban is going to end up being college football's version of Jose Mourinho.
For the non-soccer fans, Mourinho is an ornery coach who basically comes into a team, near-immediately wins a championship, and then within 4 years, bolts because he begins losing, or the players stage a mutiny, or both.
I wonder if Urban is going to become a HC mercenary.
October 23rd, 2018 at 10:07 AM ^
Jose Mourinho was the first name I thought of when I saw this report. Assuming there is some truth to this report--and I believe the original source was Herbstreit, not FootballScoop--Urban's pattern with his teams would mirror Mourinho's (albeit with slightly longer tenures for Meyer).
October 23rd, 2018 at 10:10 AM ^
I think the comparison is deserved just yet, since all of Urban's abrupt departures have been building up to the OSU job.
But if he bolts (or gets fired) from his dream job, then I think this is what he becomes.
October 23rd, 2018 at 11:13 AM ^
It wouldn't surprise me if his next stop was the NFL.
It's apparent that, while a very good coach, Meyer is a complete failure when it comes to mentoring young men. If he goes to the NFL, he won't have to worry about stuff like making sure players go to class, hiding evidence of paying players, and helping 18-year-olds grow up into citizens. He can just focus on winning games, which is all he's good at anyway.
October 23rd, 2018 at 3:52 PM ^
Billy Martin had a similar reputation as a baseball coach.
October 23rd, 2018 at 10:14 AM ^
Brett McMurphy predicted this would be his last year. That guy knows his stuff.
October 23rd, 2018 at 10:15 AM ^
It does seem something is wrong with the OSU defense. And with Bosa, as a captain, completely bailing from the program may indicate current team issues are real otherwise it seems he would stick around and do his rehab in Columbus.
It wouldn't shock me to see them fall again in the next three weeks ... Scott Frost appears to have turned the corner, so maybe he can shock the world next Saturday? If not, then MSU and Maryland will have a shot at the rotten scarlet tomato.
October 23rd, 2018 at 10:59 AM ^
LB play is miserably bad.
October 23rd, 2018 at 12:20 PM ^
+1 for "rotten scarlet tomato."
October 23rd, 2018 at 10:25 AM ^
This is some bullshit reporting - the article's sourced to football scoop (a clickbaity site) that bleacher report picked up and is reporting like it's factual. It gives no direct evidence, cites "industry sources" and then just goes off on a tangent and briefly goes into Herbstreit's concern about Meyer.
It may be true but industry sources were also saying Oakland was still in play.
October 23rd, 2018 at 12:43 PM ^
I like that you posted this comment just a few minutes before you started the Bobby Petrino thread citing a fake Courier Journal News twitter account with the handle "@_birddaniel"
October 26th, 2018 at 4:53 PM ^
Yeah not my best moment. I also contacted a mod on twitter and told them to nuke the thread. So I'll own it. It's mine.
October 23rd, 2018 at 12:48 PM ^
Wait, is Oakland still in play?
October 23rd, 2018 at 10:33 AM ^
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/ncaafb/report-friction-exists-within-ohio-state-football-program/ar-BBOLuJC?ocid=U508DHP
October 23rd, 2018 at 10:56 AM ^
If they fire or 'mutually part ways' with him after the season, they really will have blown this situation. They could have shown themselves to be an institution with some class and standards (HA!) unlike MSU. So now they would still have gotten rid of one of the top coaches in the country, but only after sacrificing any semblance of ethics. Way to go Schmuckeyes!
October 23rd, 2018 at 10:58 AM ^
Dudes never really left a job with any kind of "honor"
October 23rd, 2018 at 10:59 AM ^
They lost to Purdue and might lose to Michigan once, finishing the season 11-2 after they win their bowl game? Yep, fire the coach. Only reasonable thing to do. He gone.
October 23rd, 2018 at 11:09 AM ^
Meyer is an opportunistic scumbag with complete indifference toward ethics, but he's one of the best coaches of this generation and a great recruiter. I don't know much about Ryan Day, but it would surprise me if he could step into Meyer's shoes without a dropoff.
October 23rd, 2018 at 11:11 AM ^
All of these internal issues and discord at OSU were inevitable when they brought in Meyer. It was only a matter of time before it all reached critical mass. The OSU admin didn't care because they just wanted the winning to keep going. Now the shit birds have come home to roost. Just like everyone saw with Florida, Meyer programs start to rot with poor leadership, scandals, and disunity from the inside. From all the indications too, he seems to be the "anti-player's coach". The players do probably like the interim guy a lot more because he probably acts like a decent human being to them. I hope Michigan hastens his exit by beating them in Columbus.