During his year away from coaching in 2011, Urban Meyer embarked on a journey from his home in Florida to the Pacific Northwest for a meeting of the minds between two of college football’s offensive geniuses.
It was here, in Eugene, Ore. — the state’s second-largest city with a population of less than 160,000 — where Meyer, now with the Ohio State Buckeyes, met with Chip Kelly, then Oregon’s up-and-coming coach and now the head of the Philadelphia Eagles.
The Emerald City, as Eugene is sometimes called, is isolated from much of the college football world. And yet in this part of the country, the Oregon Ducks have become one of the sport’s superpowers behind a flashy and fast offense. Meyer headed west to see why.
Upon arriving, Meyer, a disciple of former Buckeyes coach Earle Bruce and an old-school, smash-mouth, Midwest, yes-ma'am, no-sir brand of football, found himself trying to make sense of a new, strange and foreign world.
“You go in there, they are playing Lion King music. They have like a DJ at practice. Bizarre stuff now,” he said.
“I remember even, I was like, ‘What is this?’ I worked for old Bruce. We didn't have Lion King and DJs at practice.”
So at some point during his stay, Kelly turned to him and said: "You know, this is the only way to do it.”
To which Meyer said, “What are you talking about, ‘This is the only way to do it?’”
Four seasons later, Meyer seems to have made sense of that moment. What works for Kelly, works for Kelly; what works for Meyer, works for Meyer.
And what works for Oregon, works for Oregon; what works for Ohio State, works for Ohio State.
But the underlying thread of it all is the same.
“Everyone's aligned. Everyone,” Meyer said. “You walk in the facility, it's about win today.”
He paused and laughed.
“I'm not here to promote Oregon,” he said, grinning, “but I would like to think that people walk in the Ohio State football facility now” and think the same thing. “We have a culture here, too.”
This, aside from the bevy of knowledge gleaned regarding the Ducks uptempo, breakneck-speed offense among other things, is what Meyer learned from a visit to Oregon, who stands between him and his third national championship next Monday in Dallas. It reaffirmed something in him.
"Instead of saying, let's go take their culture, it's something I always believed," Meyer said.
"When you see teams fail, it's not because of bad players, it's not because of bad coaches. It's because of alignment issues. I'm convinced of that more than ever after being in this business for so long."
In the offseason, following a postseason collapse against Michigan State and Clemson last year, Meyer held himself at fault for failing to create a "clarity of purpose" at Ohio State. This is a battle he's fought since taking over the program in 2012.
As the National Championship Game approaches, it seems Meyer has finally done this.
