SEC Network’s Peter Burns blasts Ohio State, puts Purdue loss on mishandling of Urban Meyer saga
By Keith Farner
Published:
Peter Burns said he believes Ohio State’s upset loss at Purdue on Saturday was related to how the university and Urban Meyer handled the internal investigation related to Zach Smith’s firing.
The SEC Network host said Monday morning that the undisciplined and unfocused effort at Purdue — for the “fourth straight week” — was because the Buckeyes’ attention, especially in university leadership roles, was elsewhere.
“This is what happens when you have Urban Meyer at the helm,” Burns said. “Ohio State, you brought this upon yourself with how sloppy and undisciplined this team is. When you’re worried about deleting texts off your phone, when you’re sending out five different apology tweets, because of your behavior and your program’s behavior, when you’re worried about the findings of a sham internal investigation. This wasn’t a real internal investigation into Urban Meyer at Ohio State, it was an absolute sham. When you have to worry about that stuff, you’re unfocused, and that leads to your team being undisciplined.”
Burns’ opinion comes at an unusual time because the Buckeyes had already knocked off TCU and Penn State, for example, in an otherwise strong start to the season.
“That’s Urban Meyer’s fault, but more importantly, it’s Ohio State’s fault, and their lack of leadership has hurt those kids, because I think that team at Ohio State is as talented as any team in the country right now,” he said. “But they are led by someone who is unfocused, and that’s the reason they lost that game, and I think that they’ll lose another.”
Logically, that would most likely be against Michigan, though the Buckeyes are also set to play Nebraska, Michigan State and Maryland down the stretch.
“At some point Ohio State has to realize what’s better for their university, and guess what, it’s not Urban Meyer being the head coach.”-@PeterBurnsESPN earlier today on #SECThisMorning.
Listen for more below on why the Buckeyes came out unprepared against Purdue. pic.twitter.com/C6HUSLe9vc
— College Sports on SiriusXM (@SXMCollege) October 22, 2018
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
