Urban Meyer is no longer the head coach at Ohio State, and now, he has taken his talents to FOX Sports as a featured analyst on the network’s Saturday pregame show.
Recently, Colin Cowherd has been all over Alabama about its scheduling, and when the Tide announced a home-and-home series with Wisconsin, Cowherd was hilariously quick to take credit.
Meyer joined Cowherd recently, and Cowherd pinned him down on scheduling. He asked Meyer why he scheduled big games early on the road when a team like Alabama doesn’t.
Cowherd to Meyer: “I think a great program (Alabama) has a responsibility to go on the road. You went to USC; you went to Oklahoma; you would go on the road regular. I think you went to Texas and Virginia Tech. You took some big swings on the road early. Why did you do it? ”
Meyer: “Well, I let Gene Smith handle the scheduling. We had a very similar philosophy because we were told and it was very clear that strength of schedule was a key contributor about who goes to the College Football Playoff. The scheduling is not the same. However, I was in the SEC. When I was in the SEC, I got very defensive — we did play Florida State home and away every other year. However, when you just look at that conference top to bottom that is the strongest conference. I can understand it.”
Meyer’s admission shows that playing a conference schedule in the SEC will make a program and head coach not want to schedule these big games. It doesn’t have to either.
However, credit SEC programs now, including Alabama, for scheduling big future home-and-home series.
You can watch Meyer’s full interview below:
Saturday Down South reports and comments on the news around the Southeastern Conference as well as larger college football topics.
