Urban Meyer hit piece by Sporting News brings up some interesting questions

Today the Sporting News' Matt Hayes released an article that was a virtual smackdown of the new Buckeye coach mostly about his time at the University of Florida.  My issue with most of the article is that much of it uses unnamed sources but for the purposes of this post I'm going to trust that everything in it is true.  Frankly it would surprise me if it weren't true as the Sporting News doesn't usually publish unsubstantiated rumors as it is an actual news organization as opposed to a blog or website like TMZ.  Just because we don't know the sources doesn't mean they don't exist as I'd have to assume the editor at SN reviewed it extensively before releasing the article.


Facts as presented:

• While recruiting him earlier this year, Meyer told told Stefon Diggs that he wouldn’t let his son go to Florida because of significant character issues in the Florida locker room.
• Florida’s downfall began at the height of Meyer’s success—the 2008 national championship season. Three seasons of enabling and pandering to elite players—what Meyer’s players called his “Circle of Trust”—began to tear away at what he’d put together.
• According to multiple sources, the three players—all critical factors in Florida’s rise under Meyer—failed drug tests for marijuana and were sitting out as part of standard university punishment. By publicly stating the three were injured and not being disciplined, former players say, Meyer was creating a divide between the haves and have-nots on the team.
• Just how prevalent was the drug use among Meyer’s players? A source told Sporting News that Patriots coach Bill Belichick spoke to the current Florida team this offseason, and addressed the issue and how it impacts NFL careers. His message was, in essence, don’t be like those guys,” a source said.
• After the 2008 season, Thomas says he was told he had to “move on” because he wasn’t in the team’s plans for 2009. “I told (Meyer) I was on track to graduate, I wasn’t a problem and I did everything I was supposed to do—I just had a knee injury,” Thomas said. “I told them I wasn’t leaving, and if they tried to force me to leave, I was going to tell everyone everything." The next day, Thomas says he was given a medical hardship letter by position coach Chuck Heater stating Thomas had an injury that would prohibit him from playing football.
• Wisconsin accused Meyer and his staff of using former Ohio State NFL players to call high school recruits. Wisconsin also accused Meyer and his staff of bumping into offensive lineman Kyle Dodson, who was committed to the Badgers but eventually flipped and signed with the Buckeyes.

As I went through the article I found a lot of filler and not a lot of meat. I also find it interesting that states that Thomas was forced from the Florida team under Meyer while breezing past the fact that by the end of the 2011 season "Muschamp’s weeding out process of players who wouldn’t buy into his philosophy had whittled the roster to 72 scholarship players—13 under the NCAA limit."

It's a bit of a double standard but it does touch on some of the harsh realities in college football.  If it is all true it provides a bit of an insight into Urban Meyer.  From the article he seems when he arrived at Florida that he was an inexperienced manager who choose to treat his players as adults rather than as children and got burned as a result.  He's also not above using any means necessary to recruit a player including harsh truths.  Finally, he's willing to manage his roster to make room for underachieving players.

That's it.

Three months of investigation and that's the result.  If Charles Robinson spent 3 months on a story there would be jail time involved.  At best this story raises some questions about using NFL players to help recruiting as nothing else is close to a violation.

Ohio State knew what it was getting when we hired Urban Meyer.  He seems to have addressed any personal issues with player accountability and though perhaps has gone a bit overboard my guess he is currently setting expectations.  One thing is for sure and that is he's no Jim Tressel in regards to player interests.  Tressel went to an extreme in focusing on a recruit's character then tried to sign the best football players out of that bunch.  Meyer will recruit the best players but won't hesitate to drop a kid if the negatives outweigh the positives.  While this might cause some uncomfortable moments in the coming years, I'm ok with it because that's the reality in college football these days.  All you need to do is look at the NCAA's response to oversigning and you know what is important to the people that run the sport.

Winning is king and for Ohio State, there is no better choice than Urban Meyer.  A year removed from the problems at Florida he's no doubt learned some lessons and now is energized to retake the football world by storm.  I expect this won't be the last of these types of articles because no one writes them when you are losing.