Urban Meyer & Ohio St

[the arnold palmer of golf]

W/ Uban Meyer at OSU and considering Meyers connections w/ UC (Graduate?) what are the chances we can reach an agreement to have an annual UC/OSU rivalry?

[RedRocker]

Originally Posted by the arnold palmer of golf

W/ Uban Meyer at OSU and considering Meyers connections w/ UC (Graduate?) what are the chances we can reach an agreement to have an annual UC/OSU rivalry?

It would be great to see an annual game between both schools in a home and home series, but tO$U will never go for that with UC and UC should not settle for anything less with PBS as a home venue now.

I would like to see early season matchups with UK, IU, PU, Northwestern, Vandy, BC, GT and others like that. Maybe 2 MAC (Miami & ?) games and 2 games such as this plus an 8 game BE schedule.

[JDBEARCAT]

Never going to happen. OSU won't take the chance of getting beat by UC!
OSU = Chickens & Ducks!!!!!

[Binturong05]

Originally Posted by the arnold palmer of golf

W/ Uban Meyer at OSU and considering Meyers connections w/ UC (Graduate?) what are the chances we can reach an agreement to have an annual UC/OSU rivalry?

Slim to none. o$u has been dodging UC for years from threatening to cancel the 2012 game to later agreeing to buying out UC by paying the university one million dollars to move the 2012 game from PBS to Columbus to now there are reports the game has been canceled. There is some debate if this is due to Big East tumult or just o$u backing out.

http://www.wlwt.com/sports/29642811/detail.html

Either way o$u has no interest in starting a home-and-home series because o$u has nothing to gain. It's like other traditional powers when they get stuck playing TCU or Boise State in the BCS bowl games. If the traditional power wins then everyone just says "well you should have beat them" but if they lose it's a huge embarassment and in UC's case would be a major in-state recruiting tool and o$u has no interest in relinquishing its grip on in-state recruiting.

Do not get your hopes up that o$u will suddenly add UC to its regular schedule or honor their commitment in 2014. In addition to the above reasoning UC is also too tough of an opponent to be added to the non-conference o$u schedule. They will continue to pad their win column with 2 or 3 MAC teams, an FCS team, and maybe a team in the bottom-half of a BCS conference. This is their MO and it has worked for them in the modern BCS era and been very profitable. No sense in them making things harder on themselves when they've figured out how to game the system.

[the arnold palmer of golf]

they did have a series against Texas and USC and Miami (whos supposed to be good) but yeah I guess UC not being a big boy and a percieved or actual mid major they wont want to lose state pride or whatever.

I just thought Meyer may give us a shot since he went here.

[London 'Cat]

UC doesn't need tO$U on the schedule. There are plenty of chances for UC to play big name opponents, whether away, at PBS or some other neutral site. Why give tO$U any opportunities to establish itself as the dominant program in Ohio? Don't play them, keep winning your own games and let everyone speculate whether UC could beat them. That may be better for UC's program than playing them and potentially suffering a lopsided loss.

[cmm27]

UC would not suffer a lopsided loss if they played. UC has every chance to beat them, especially with Jones seeming to be able to narrow the talent margin between the schools' recruits.

It is better for UC not to play them because when they play an NC State, or a Va Tech or a Tennessee it puts the school closer to recruits they would not be in on otherwise. It also makes UC appear more national than regional the more you can have different areas hear about the school and the program. Maybe, someday soon, we won't have to explain what a Bearcat is to every visiting fan, or home fan when we visit them...

[London 'Cat]

Originally Posted by cmm27

UC would not suffer a lopsided loss if they played. UC has every chance to beat them, especially with Jones seeming to be able to narrow the talent margin between the schools' recruits.

It is better for UC not to play them because when they play an NC State, or a Va Tech or a Tennessee it puts the school closer to recruits they would not be in on otherwise. It also makes UC appear more national than regional the more you can have different areas hear about the school and the program. Maybe, someday soon, we won't have to explain what a Bearcat is to every visiting fan, or home fan when we visit them...

Maybe not, but history is not on UC's side. With the exception of the game at PBS, the games have been pretty well dominated by tO$U. Perhaps Jones has closed the talent gap recently, but with Meyer becoming head coach, I expect that talent margin to widen once again. I hate to admit it, but anti-$uckeye nation is in for some hard times ahead with Meyer at the helm of that program.

The reasons you listed for playing teams other than tO$U are exactly on point. Make UC more of a national brand and reach recruits in areas outside Ohio while also trying to sign local recruits as well.

[cmm27]

Even with Meyer at coach, say he brings in the #1 overall class and Jones tops out at the #15 class that is a difference of 14, easy math. Continuing that further, when Ohio State brought in a #10 class and UC brought in a #50 class... I think you can see where I am going with this. The talent gap is narrowing because Jones is one heck of a recruiter and UC's recent success is making kids take notice that would not previously have considered UC.

[ucfan34]

Originally Posted by cmm27

Even with Meyer at coach, say he brings in the #1 overall class and Jones tops out at the #15 class that is a difference of 14, easy math. Continuing that further, when Ohio State brought in a #10 class and UC brought in a #50 class... I think you can see where I am going with this. The talent gap is narrowing because Jones is one heck of a recruiter and UC's recent success is making kids take notice that would not previously have considered UC.

Sort of playing Devil's advocate here, but I'd argue that the talent disparity hasn't been that big of a gap for quite a while now. Looking back at the last few games UC has played vs OSU and while they haven't come away with a win, none of those games were uncompetitive.

UC's only gotten better. (and yeah yeah...it's easy to get up for one game etc...heard that before, lol)

[London 'Cat]

Originally Posted by cmm27

Even with Meyer at coach, say he brings in the #1 overall class and Jones tops out at the #15 class that is a difference of 14, easy math. Continuing that further, when Ohio State brought in a #10 class and UC brought in a #50 class... I think you can see where I am going with this. The talent gap is narrowing because Jones is one heck of a recruiter and UC's recent success is making kids take notice that would not previously have considered UC.

The gap widening has less to do with Jones' recruiting than it does Meyer's recruiting. I see tO$U becoming a recruiting juggernaut under Meyer. He has placed countless players into the NFL, as has tO$U. Combine the two and you've got a program that gets basically any recruit it wants. Even if Jones continues to raise the level of recruits coming to UC, which I have no doubt is likely, the gap widens because tO$U also continues to raise the level of its recruits.

[Bearcat Otto]

I don't care what level recruiting is, you will still have kids that want to play rather than sit.

It can only help us if OSU raises the bar because we will get our fair share of the rest.

[Binturong05]

Keep in mind the type of player Urban is likely to recruit - especially on the offensive side of the ball. This is very different than what was the prototypical player sought after by Tressel. If Urban is going to implement the same system as he ran at Florida he's going to be looking for smaller, faster players as opposed to the big, beefy kids Tressel went after. This was mentioned in the Gator Bowl by the announcers who said many of the players Urban brought in at Florida weren't a good fit for the pro-style offense Weis ran. Weis wants a drop-back pocket passer while Urban wants a dual threat. Weis likes bigger backs that run between the tackles while Urban likes scat back change-of-pace type RBs. It will be interesting to see if urban makes adjustments. If he doesn't this could allow some more pro-style kids to fall in UC's lap. On the other hand many of the undersized kids are the same type Butch is recruiting right now which fit well in his sideline-to-sideline spread system.

[Binturong05]

Not sure how many of you have already read this. It caused a big stink in Columbus for about 24 hours. Nonetheless it highlights the sorts of tactics other coaches will be facing in recruiting kids from the Cincinnati area, the state of Ohio, and in general where ever Ohio State chooses to prospect.

http://aol.sportingnews.com/ncaa-foo...gram-will-musc

On a related note I think this article points to the systemic nature of the problem at Ohio State. Here they were forced to dismiss their long-tenured coach Tressel for, to put it lightly, unethical conduct and a culture fostering a lack of control (and to put it bluntly many would argue they were complicit in providing those benefits). So what do they do? Bring in a rigid disciplinarian to clean up the program? Nope! They bring in someone with a dubious track record who is likely to maintain the status quo. This just reinforces the notion that Ohio State would rather win at all costs than maintain a clean program with integrity and risk losing .