OSU/MSU Coaching Futures Discussion
The cited podcast is a month old and no longer exists, but I thought it warranted discussion in our slow period.
We drifted into the Penn State zone. Some of their fans think Paterno won a Super Bowl.
He's already said his goals were to play as long as he could, coach then die. He may not be at Michigan all those years but I don't see why he won't be a football coach for at least the next 20 years.
I really think this is his last stop as a coach. I think he will be the HC at Michigan for at least 15 years total. At that time he will be near the top of all time wins at UM and will have at least 3 NC's. They will look to put a statue of him up next to Bo and he will definitely be a legend at UM forever.
When it comes to Meyer, I don't think he will be around a whole lot longer. He's had a great run and if he falters at all, like a couple of straight losses to UM and ending in a 3-4 loss season he will step down.
"You're born, you play football for as long as they let you, you coach football and then you die."
I think he plans to coach for a while longer.
We need Michigan's medical and engineering schools to figure out a way to make a Robo-Harbaugh so he can coach forever.
Would Urban go coach ND for a few years if they fire Kelly this season?
Only if Lane Kiffin is the OC
Nah, he's not dirty enough.
(My comment was in response to Hugh Freeze to OSU)
"Would Urban go coach ND for a few years if they fire Kelly this season?"
If memory serves, his contract with OSU does provide for his release for the ND job. I believe I read that somewhere.
I can't see why he'd do that. Yeah, if he won an NC at Notre Dame that'd be his fourth at three different schools, and that puts him in pretty elite circles. But man ... Notre Dame, and I'm not sure in this day and age the "Notre Dame cachet" is quite so strong. It would be a risky move.
But who knows ... stranger things have happened.
argument to be made that Ohio State is the best all around job in college football.
Alabama is amazing, but there's so much pressure.
Texas is a top one, but the Texas politics can be too much and Texas is under seige recruiting wise.
Michigan is obviously top notch, but the academics will always narrow the recruiting pool a little more than other top notch jobs.
I mean, they're in a talent rich state without any main instate competition, they have very good academics, but they're not elite enough that Meyer is going to turn down a 5* recruit because they can't get in. Passionate fans, great history. I think USC may be a better all around job, but Ohio State is close.
OSU is as much a pressure cooker as Bama. The more significant advantage it has over UA is the lack of in-state competition.
No way there is as much pressure at OSU as Alabama. Not during Saban's tenure now. Before that, yes. Now? Nope.
Any pressure that Saban has, he created himself by raising expectations, but has probably also bought himself such a massive leash such that he might not have much pressure anyway.
Amazing how quickly everyone forgets how mediocre Alabama was before he arrived. They only had 2 seasons with less than 5 losses in the 11 (!!) seasons under DuBose, Franchione and Shula in the pre-Saban years. And those two seasons they had 3 losses each.
Alabama is way more impatient. John Coopers first 5 years he had a record of 35-21-3. Ohio State is a pressure cooker, but it's much more patient than Alabama. You can afford a down season at Ohio State.
But I have to laugh at the notion that Saban couldn't afford a down season at Alabama.
I'm not sure in this day and age the "Notre Dame cachet" is quite so strong.I don't think ND has quite the "cachet" that OSU does, but if Kelley can continue to recruit well after a 4-8 season, I can't imagine Meyer would have any trouble. ND has still managed to put together classes in the 10-15 range of overall class rankings the past 5 years (247). While I agree it would be a risky move because they won't quite recruit at the same clip OSU does, it's not as though Meyer would struggle there.
No, but would he win as much there as at OSU? Also no. Would he win as much there as OSU did after he left? Probably not. It's hard to see the appeal for Meyer in looking up at the team he left..
The only way I see him at ND is after a two step process like his move from UF to OSU.
The right coach at ND now would turn them into the powehouse they were in the same way Lou Holtz reenergised them. That school will always have the mystique.
A title at ND would "put him pretty elite circles?" He's already only one of four to do it at multiple top-level schools (Saban, Howard Jones, Pop Warner) I don't think he's so good to just wave a wand and pull a NC into South Bend, but he wouldn't be in elite company if he did. He'd be standing alone.
I think you are remember a passage from Urban Meyer's biography by Buddy Martin in 2008.
In the passage, Urban stated that he gave his wife, Shelley, the power to veto any job offer he recieved except for three "dream jobs:" Ohio State, Michigan and Notre Dame. Urban's Utah contract was the only one that had those 3 programs in it with an "escape clause."
ND is disfunctional, mediocre talent, recent mediocrity, and an alumni base that is insane. And academic standards which means it doesn't always matter the number of stars.
Plus So Bend is nothing special, but Columbus, I hate to admit it, has the short north, it's Italian village (former red light district), and Germantown, which is pretty nice.
Stay in Columbus and be a legend, or go to So Bend and need to work harder than Harbaugh to rebuild.
No way does coach ND w/his health issues.
I think your post contains the seeds of how he may NOT be around long. People that operate that frenetically almost always burn out, leading to mental health or physical issues. To avoid this, he would need to operate at less than 100%, which would lead to sub-par results. I see one or the other happening - he burns out and leaves, or he slows down and OSU underperforms (at least relative to the recent past).
No evidence of burning out, at least yet. Meyer has showed that when things start getting really tough, he wilts and snaps. In other words, I think Harbaugh is built for functioning at this level, and Meyer has shown he may not be.
I know there are rumors of his Florida exit being due to a coed kerfuffle.
My opinion is the rise of Alabama, coupled with the self-imposed pressure to add to the two NCs already achieved at Florida, proved too much. Meyer claims he has adjusted his head to such things. Maybe he has, maybe he hasn't.
Harbaugh strikes me as the kind of person who puts disappointment into a box and shoves it out of sight. Then he moves on. That's a remarkable thing to possess.
At OSU it's not self-imposed pressure. There were OSU fans calling for Meyer's head after he lost at home to MSU two years ago. If he doesn't win another national title soon, hell if he doesn't win another Big Ten title soon, that moronic fanbase will start calling for his head again.
It's not that he'll get fired, it's that the pressure from the fanbase will get to be too much. They're crazy, remember
So when there was a crucial period in say the biggest game of the year in Columbus and the guy throws a clipboard and draws a penalty on his team - that was not snapping. But Urban snaps at any opportunity.
Got it.
I hear a lot of wishful thinking on this thread.
An almost perfect specimen of the fallacious strawman argument. Thanks. I can use this as an example for my class.
dude's a different breed
I get the sense Meyer is driven to excel at coaching because he feels a sense of pressure because he desperately wants to win. I imagine that Harbaugh intreprets it a little differently. While they both share the desire to win really badly I get the sense that Meyer is driven by stress and arrogance, which may be actually fear of failure underneath. Harbaugh on the other hand is really different in that he trurely just loves to do it. He seems to love to compete as much as he loves to win and is willing to fail for the opportunity to compete. Harbaugh would do it all in his free time if he could and doesn't seem to be stressed out by the whole thing in the way Meyer does.
While they both seem to hate losing, Meyer only seems to like winning and might intrepret the process of what it takes to win as stressful whereas Harbaugh also loves winning, but loves the preperation process just as much. What other guy would would go do all these camps, climb tress and do sleepovers while recruiting, and genuienly enjoy coaching, while playing with the guys with his shirt off?
Both are special coaches, but Meyer seems more "normal" and Harbaugh really seems like a bit of a genius in the sense that he just intreprets life and how he percieves the world differently than most people. Harbaugh seems better able to truely not care about what others think, which allows him to be less stressed out by outside pressures.
That's my hot take.
I agree. Meyer seems very driven to win, but seems hyper-serious, like Saban. They seem constantly enveloped in stress.
Harbaugh seems driven to win and compete, but the difference is, he seems like he's really enjoying himself and having a great time. He loves football, he loves Michigan, and it all seems like a great creative outlet for him. He's like a kid with lots of interesting toys.
You make a good point about the satellite camps. Yeah, it certainly helps with recruiting, but Harbaugh is the kind of guy that would do it even if it wasn't, just to help the game and the kids. He seems more motivated by love for the game than simply a drive to win. He does both.
Harbaugh seems to have a remarkably good work/life balance for a head football coach. He loves his job but finds time to enjoy other things, too.