How Urban Meyer’s retirement changes the college football balance of power
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If at any point in the past 4 years you asked the question “who’s the biggest threat to the SEC’s dominance,” you probably got 1 of 2 answers.
It’s Clemson, or it’s Ohio State.
The former has been the better answer since the Buckeyes won the 2014 College Football Playoff National Championship. In fact, Ohio State hasn’t faced an SEC team since beating Alabama in the 2014 Playoff semifinal. From that perspective, one could say that the Buckeyes haven’t even put themselves in position to threaten the SEC’s dominance.
But Urban Meyer’s retirement from Ohio State certainly has an impact on the balance of power in college football as a whole. And if you look beyond the box score, it’ll have an impact on the SEC.
What Meyer brought to the Big Ten was essentially an SEC program. The speed, the consistency and the next-level talent was really unlike anything we’ve seen in that conference in the 21st century.
That all starts with recruiting. Meyer cranked out top-5 classes in his sleep at Ohio State. Many of those stars came from Florida. While the transition to Ryan Day figures to help the Buckeyes in the short-term, there’s no guarantee that he’ll maintain that level of success in the long-term. Very few coaches outside of Saban have a track record of recruiting nationally like Meyer.
I think of recruiting like a big family at the dinner table. There’s a pecking order, and there’s probably 6 people who have a seat at the table on a yearly basis. Meyer excused himself from the dinner table for good. That means one of those seats is available. And in the meantime, coaches will now try and feast on whatever food usually went to the Buckeyes.
Weird analogy, but you get what I’m saying, right?
Ohio State is still one of the top brands in the sport, and considering how quickly Meyer flipped the Buckeyes after the transition year with Luke Fickell, current recruits aren’t old enough to remember a 2-year stretch that the program failed to win double-digit games. Obviously Ohio State was Ohio State before Meyer, and it’ll still be a force after Meyer.
But I can’t help but feel like the 50-and-under club of coaches benefitted with Tuesday’s news. They’re the ones who are still at the table. That means Dabo Swinney, Kirby Smart, Lincoln Riley and Tom Herman are the ones who stand to benefit the most in that group.
The same could be said for Dan Mullen at Florida. Mullen, who is trying to get a seat at that table, might have more success recruiting in-state 5-star talents like Nicholas Petit-Frere without Meyer in the picture anymore.
Oh, and I mustn’t forget Jim Harbaugh. You know, the guy who went 0-4 against Meyer and recently looked like he was still somehow a few pegs below the Buckeyes’ coach.
There’s a good argument to be made that Meyer’s Buckeyes were the only thing holding Harbaugh back from getting a seat at the dinner table. Twice, Harbaugh’s teams came up short against Ohio State with Big Ten Championship and Playoff hopes still alive.
Having said that, just because Meyer is gone doesn’t mean Michigan is suddenly going to take Ohio State’s place as a yearly Playoff contender through championship weekend. It was Day’s offense that demolished Michigan’s top-ranked defense. Let’s not forget the Wolverines were 2-9 against the Buckeyes in the 11 years before Meyer got to Columbus. It’s a knee-jerk reaction to say that Michigan is definitively the team to beat in the conference.
Really, any forgone conclusions about Ohio State’s future seem premature. Meyer built a tremendous staff with assistants who have Power 5 head coaching experience, and not to mention some of the country’s top position coaches. We have no idea whether it’ll remain intact.
For all we know, Meyer was holding the Buckeyes back. His in-game decision-making has been questionable at times, as was his refusal to stretch the field vertically with his offense after Cardale Jones left. Speaking of Jones, he didn’t mince words with his opinion of Day.
Ryan Day is the best thing to happen to the Ohio State offense since the absence of Tom Herman. Developing players & calling plays that benefit their skill sets. #GoBucks #Haskins4Heisman
— Cardale Jones (@CJ1two) December 2, 2018
These young offensive minds like Day are the wave of the future. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of Ohio State essentially having its Lincoln Riley to Bob Stoops. If that’s the case, the narrative with the Buckeyes doesn’t change at all.
Again, it’s early for that. It’s early for everything.
All we know is one of the best coaches of the 21st century is no longer running one of the top programs in the country. At one point, it looked like Alabama’s toughest competitor as the premier program in college football. Clemson and Georgia since assumed that role.
It’s going to take years to see just how dramatically Meyer’s departure impacts the college football landscape. Even if Day does become Riley 2.0, there are still plenty of reasons this could change the course of college football outside of the Midwest.
Perhaps it’ll be a new coach showing up to the dinner table. Maybe it’s Day, or maybe it’s someone else.
Someone is hungry enough to eat the food off Meyer’s plate.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
