At the edge of the apocalypse, the last two Overlords of the Wastes considered each other. Urb-thaar shrugged off his lion pelt and spat. "I knew that it'd come to this, Saa-baan. I knew it when you stole the Genesis Crystal from me, and I know it now." Saa-baan threw his head back and laughed, unsheathing his katana. "Urb-thaar, you fool. I am the bump in your night. I am the end to your beginning. And this ends now."
I mean, it always had to come to this, right? Urban and Saban, for the fate of the free world? Or at least, you know, for the fate of the College Football Playoff semifinal.
Ever since Meyer sauntered in from the desert, six shooter in hand, we've been waiting for Ohio State to play these types of games. Under Jim Tressel it felt almost like a birthright; the Big Ten is terrible, therefore we will win it and play in New Year's Bowls. We did that so often and gotten so spoiled that it's almost easy to forget that the last time Ohio State won a non-asterisked major bowl game was in 2010, when Terrelle Pryor roamed the earth and Purdue still posed some sort of existential threat to us.
But the last several years have been less kind. A loss in the Gator Bowl, a ban on a 12 win team, and subsequent infuriating defeat in an Orange Bowl that was mostly due to one of the best defensive-minded programs of the last decade conveniently forgetting to field a defense for an entire season.
In dog years it's been a generation Ohio State has had this kind of opportunity to establish it's bona fides on a national stage with this much riding on the line. In the eyes of many, Ohio State's last legitimate win against any opponent, bowl or otherwise, was in that Rose Bowl against the Ducks. Now they find themselves back in New Orleans, starting a third string quarterback, 10 point dogs to an Alabama team that is helmed by the most successful college football coach in maybe the last 25 years.
And that's right where Urban Meyer wants them.
"ADJUST YAW POINT SIX DEGREES AFT!" roared Second Lieutenant Urban "Urbby" Meyer. Squinting into binoculars that could only make out the barest shape of the crimson monstrosity that lay await leagues before him, Urbby gulped. With his dying breath, Admiral Tressel had entrusted him with the SS Buckeye, the only ship in the entire Big X fleet capable of taking down S-class demons. Urbby looked to his crew, and feigned a grin. "Prepare the Cardale Cannon."
Let's talk about Nick Saban for a little bit.
I'm not a big fan of the kind of narrative that paints the guy as some all-consuming hellbeast or whatever. He's a football coach of a football team, which is something that he is frustratingly very very good at, but he isn't infallible.
But let's backtrack a little bit. In 2007, Nick Saban took over a floundering Alabama program that was just coming out of some pretty severe sanctions put on them by the NCAA. In four seasons under Mike Shula, they had lost 23 games, won only three more than that, and looked as pliable and weak as an Alabama frat pledge's chin.
Saban almost immediately turned that around. In his second season, the Crimson Tide won 12 games and made it to the Sugar Bowl. In this third, they won a National Championship. By the time his sixth season rolled around, he had added two more championship rings to his tiny, tiny fist, and all but forced Alabama to build a giant metal idol in his honor.
Add that to successful stints at Michigan State and LSU, the fact that the university system in the state of Alabama is increasingly concerned with wiping out all alternative forms of football-based entertainment, and a fanbase teetering on the edge of naming their kids Isaac just for the potential privilege of sacrificing them on a hilltop, and you start to understand why he's got the rest of the SEC running scared.
"The ski lodge is mine, Meyer. I don't care what you OR your lame-wad friends have to say about it, if you can't beat me in the Battle of the Bands on Saturday, my dad is gonna turn this rinky dink piece of crap into a black footed ferret hunting lodge." Nicky Saban crossed his arms over his ascot triumphantly. "I just used this new thing called money and hired Amari to play lead guitar. You know, the rock star from Italy? Looks like you're up a creek... freak."
"Y-yeah? Well... at least I don't need shoelifts to reach the mic!"
A silence fell over the assembled crowd.
"...You're dead, Meyer. Real dead."
Let's go back to that whole "infallible" thing. The reason why I can't stand puffing up these college coaches is because it creates a narrative that excuses their shortcomings, and even celebrates them until they become positives. To be fair, it's more than a little stupid to try and poke holes in the record of a guy who has only lost five games in the last four seasons. But a loss is still a loss, and a bad performance can be an indicator of future losses. Urban Meyer is well-suited to exploit the hell out of both.
Meyer is little like a bizarro Saban. Both men are twitchy, nervous perfectionist control freaks, which makes them great college football coaches and probably horrible road trip companions. The key difference though is that this year has shown Urban Meyer to be a person who embraces the chaos of change, whereas Saban strikes me as the kind of person who will bludgeon an opponent over and over with whatever gameplan he drew up until they give in (against LSU this year, a game they narrowly won, Alabama threw the ball 45 times. Blake Sims completed 20 of those passes).
Urban Meyer is not that coach. While Saban was focused on perfecting perfection in East Lansing and Baton Rouge, Meyer played sweet improvisational football jazz at places like Bowling Green and Utah, developing a style of football that relies on adaptability and variance.
Never has that been more apparent than this season. Key offensive players have gone down, Urban and company come up with another plan, and the train keeps rolling right along without a hiccup. It's football by the seat of your pants, and it's exactly the kind of thing that drives Nick Saban absolutely insane. When there's no plan, no set directive, and literally everything (from Jalin Marshall in the wildcat to Cardale lining up at receiver to a two tight end power look to what-the-hell-we've-got-three-running-backs-let's-stick-'em-all-in-the-backfield) is on the table, planning against it is kind of a a nightmare.
Dr. Nicholas Saban was out of time. No one had listened to him. Not the police, not the military, not those arrogant bastards at the US Geological Survey. And now it was too late. He had tried to warn them, tell them how, for some reason the entire state of Ohio had become a geographic danger zone filled not just with magma and searing hot gas, but something altogether new and alien that threatened to burst forth from the world's newest active volcano, Mount Saint Urban.
The doctor sped frantically to the roiling caldera, hoping that the humble device softly beating in the passenger seat next to him would make it there on time.
It didn't. The fierce shadowy shapes were on him before he got out of his car. He never had a chance.
Right now Ohio State is playing with house money, and that makes Urban Meyer the most dangerous coach in America.
Saban and Meyer have met three times in their careers, with Saban holding a 2-1 edge in games played within the confines of an SEC conference that punishes creativity under the heel of an elephant's foot that can't even abide the hurry-up offense.
The problem that Nick Saban now faces is that across the sidelines will be a coach that has absolutely zero incentive to play by the rules he's codified for the SEC. Urban Meyer is a free man, and at Ohio State of all places, he's free to pretty much do whatever the hell he wants. By letting his freak flag fly on the field, Meyer has a chance to write one hell of an ending to the script that people have been writing for years now.
"Look sir, the burger won't eat itself. You came down here to New Orleans talking a big game about Midwest food this and corn-fed that, but the menu clearly says that to get the t-shirt you have to eat the ENTIRE 15 pounds of food on your plate within the time limit. From the looks of things, you've got six pounds to go."
Urban took a long look at the other side of the room, where earlier an angry little man with coiffed hair had attempted the same feat but passed out from a beef overdose. He remained there still, slumped in his seat and snoring softly.
Meyer grinned, took off his belt, and unbuttoned the top of his jeans.
"I have not yet begun to fight."
