I am not a suave man.
Once, as an undergrad at Ohio State, I told a cute girl that she might want to keep an eye on her equally cute puppy because I saw a hawk watching them from a streetlight. Except, instead of saying something funny and off the cuff that might've led to me getting her number, I mumbled "Hey I think your dog might get killed if you aren't careful" and was shocked (and frankly, a little irritated) that she took my friendly advice as a thinly veiled threat instead.
As I learned (many, many) years later, I had also made a number of other mistakes in this interaction, such as: looking like a bag of garbage, walking up to someone on High Street and threatening their dog while looking like a bag of garbage, thinking that subsisting on a diet of goldfish crackers and peanut butter sandwiches had no impact whatsoever on either my breath or complexion, thinking that red tailed hawks frequently attack puppies on a regular basis and that it's something that people appreciate being warned about, and so on.
I am now mercifully in a stable and long term relationship with a person who doesn't mind that my first interaction with her was a request to measure her couch to see if a similarly sized couch could fit into my apartment across the hall, but the point that I'm making is that interpersonal relationships are difficult. I suspect that they're also difficult for Urban Meyer, which is why I'm continuously impressed by his open and stable family life, as well as his ability to bring in class after class of top-ranked recruits.
I took particular notice of this on 12-Star Monday, as Meyer and company landed three four star recruits, two of whom flipped from Maryland to come to Ohio State. That's flexing some serious relationship muscle, and in my quest to better understand how to talk with other human beings, I unearthed Meyer's top-secret system for inexplicably luring top-ranked recruits from the eternal bouncy castle that is playing for the Maryland Terps: the U.R.B.A.N. System.
UNLEASH THE BEAST
One of the hallmarks of the Urban Meyer full frontal assault is a heavy propaganda campaign designed to lure in anyone who is attracted to winning. The alternate unis, the sexy offense, fifty point games becoming the norm, it's all part of a concerted effort to make the Ohio State brand as marketable to teenage athletes. That it's appealing to everyone else in the universe is a plus too, I guess, but the truth of the matter is that Ohio State as a concept in 2016 is about as far away from Ohio State as a concept in 2004 as it could possibly be. That's by design, and it's working.
RIDICULE OPPOSITION
Let's be up front about this: with the arrival of Jim Harbaugh into the Big Ten, Urban Meyer's chief rival in the recruiting game sits squarely in Ann Arbor, climbing trees and rubbing his chin thoughtfully in philosophy classes and sleeping in bedrooms if that's what it takes to get the next big recruit. I don't begrudge Harbaugh any of that, because if it works, then he has no reason to stop the monkeyshines.
Still, Harbaugh's antics play nicely into the hands of Urban Meyer and Ohio State, because while Harbaugh is out here using crazy bait on Lake Five Star, Meyer can send his coaching minions to subtweet the hell out of his competition and stay above the fray.
I bet their faces a lot like they have been for 3 years when the 5-Stars you signed didn't do anything... #TooReal ? pic.twitter.com/LaS9gnztv1
— Zach Smith #Zone6 (@CoachZachSmith) January 22, 2016
Beating them on the field repeatedly helps with that too, no doubt. But it's hard for Michigan to look cool when their rivals look so much cooler.
BRING THE CHEESE
I hope that every single person associated with Ohio State's video department got championship rings after the 2014 season, because they are doing the Lord's work. A quick perusal of the official Ohio State YouTube channel shows that it has over twenty thousand subscribers, all of whom got a healthy dose of highlight reels, game trailers, fluff practice footage, and various other celebratory clips that make you look at Ohio State as less of a football team and more of a Richard Linklater side project.
All of the videos are about three shades more serious than they really should be, but if that's what gets people hyped for an away game against Rutgers, then so be it. It should also be noted that the Wolverines do not seem to have an official YouTube channel for any of their sports (I can't find one, but would be happy to be proven wrong so I can gawk at what passes for Michigan propaganda), but their College of Dentistry absolutely does not fool around.
ALWAYS HAVE A BACKUP
Sometimes the hard sell doesn't work. It's not often that you encounter a nationally ranked recruit who just wants to make their decision and shut the whole process down, but it does happen. And more power to them! They avoid the many pitfalls of the recruiting process, which can be as severe as dying from an overdose of bath salts after a weekend bender.
But if somehow Meyer can't sway a kid toward the path of the Buckeye at the last minute, he knows that he can always look to his bullpen and find a diamond in the rough. J.T. Barrett is the classic example of this, but the truth of the matter is...
DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT, YOU'RE URBAN MEYER AND IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO YOU RECRUIT
Well... it does. Danny DeVito would not be a good choice for Urban Meyer to throw a scholarship at, depending on how much eligibility he has left.
Maybe what I'm going for with this can be explained with an outdated economics analogy. During the initial Wal-Mart boom, a lot of geographers and economists were astounded at what that company had accomplished. Whereas large wholesalers were traditionally beholden to their suppliers in terms of what kinds of prices they could charge, Wal-Mart had gotten so big that they were now able to dictate the price of goods to the very people they were trying to buy from. If Wal-Mart didn't like the price they were being given, they'd walk, knowing that there would be a thousand other suppliers beating down their door with the price that they wanted.
Ohio State now functions in much the same way. Urban Meyer can afford to make last minute offers and undercut his recruiting competition, because he knows that even if the attempted flip doesn't work, he still has two or three other guys (at most positions) who would kill for an offer, even if it was given at 7 AM on signing day.
Like Wal-Mart, this kind of approach is only sustainable as long as the program is strong, but like a lot of things in life, it's a self-fulfilling prophesy that pays off in the long run.
Ohio State might not hang on to that coveted top spot in the recruiting class rankings once it's all said and done, but that's more particularly important. What is important is that Meyer and his staff have created a machine that gets them the players that they want more often than not, and the recruiting classes that take shape as signing day approaches are shaped in an intentional and exacting way.
That control over personnel is astounding, and a luxury that not many college football programs have, and it's only realized through winning, an understanding of what makes high schoolers tick, and a system that keeps the Ohio State brand fresh. An U.R.B.A.N. System.
