A humiliating defeat in his fifth season at Florida sent him to the hospital.
You already know that story. Urban Meyer had lost an unhealthy amount of weight and was chasing beers with Ambien just to fall asleep at night - but very few people noticed his deterioration because he had taken over a rudderless 7-5 program and elevated it to 9-3, a BCS Title, 9-4 and a second BCS Title leading up to that humiliating defeat.
That took five seasons to transpire. Oh, and Team no.5 was 12-0 prior to that loss.
Winning is one of nature's most powerful and addictive analgesics. Winning through unsustainable and self-destructive means never had the potential for longevity, and only losing - even just one game - was what ripped away the facade.
It's Year 6 and we are still trying to predict Ohio State's future by shoehorning in Meyer's previous timelines into it.
It exposed him, but dropping the SEC Championship to Alabama did not change Meyer's frenetic nature. He quickly retired, quickly unretired, eviscerated Cincinnati in the Sugar Bowl and signed the consensus no. 1 recruiting class in the country inside of a 40-day span. You could say he hit the snooze bar on what had been a wake-up call.
His facade was back in place, albeit briefly. One season later Meyer was an ESPN football analyst.
His sixth and final year in Gainesville produced five losses; just one fewer than the total he has absorbed thus far over five seasons in Columbus. While Meyer has been transparent about his health since leaving Florida his fifth season in Columbus concluded with a similarly potent facade-wrecking loss that was at least as destructive as the SEC Championship Game in 2009.
Except this one didn't send him to the hospital. It sent him on an urgent and productive coaching search. No ambulances, chest pains beer or Ambien this time - instead Meyer sought a remedy for what has plagued the program since its title run.
And that is how we arrived at Year Six. This is the edge of Meyer's coaching longevity.
Over the past five years we have thrown every possible parallel at Meyer's Ohio State tenure based on what he has been able to do in his previous stops. The first impression he made after his one-year sabbatical from coaching was ominous: He improved Ohio State's win total by a whopping six games over the previous year.
It wasn't the first time, either. He did that at Bowling Green too when he took the Falcons from 2-9 to 8-3 in his honeymoon season. Once 2012 happened the Buckeyes' future under Meyer was foretold - Year 2 would deliver an undefeated season (Utah) or BCS Title (Florida) or both. Unfortunately that parallel fell apart in Indianapolis, and the only previous Year 3 on record was in Gainesville where the program dipped for four losses prior to a second title run in Year 4.
Year 4 shocked everyone when it arrived a season early. That incomparable run established the championship trajectory and Buckeye fans should have realized they were no longer confined to historical, individual seasons to try and ascertain how they would transpire in Columbus.
So Ohio State would be a championship-contending program as long as Meyer was in charge of it, regardless of roster, injured quarterbacks or scheduling. We know know this, unequivocally. Our countdown paranoia should have ceased after 2014. It faces extinction after 2017.
Meyer's pace entering Year 6 at Ohio State is the stuff statues are made of.
That's because Meyer hasn't been in charge of any single football thing longer than six seasons. The questions have never been around competence or engagement; it's always been about personal sustainability. There's a psychological aspect to Year 6. Meyer has never had a seventh year, anywhere. After 2017 Columbus will be tied with Fort Collins for resume longevity.
When he came out of his brief retirement the first question everyone asked was how long will Meyer last this time? The second question was how soon will the Buckeyes be in title contention? There was no third question.
The bold predictions about his success have held their accuracy - Ohio State has finished first in its division in each of Meyer's five seasons, landing on the wrong side of NCAA rules and pesky head-to-head tiebreakers in three of those instances. He's 61-6. It's absolutely gaudy. The Buckeyes would have to drop nine games this fall for his record to equal what he pulled off in Gainesville.
Conversely, many of the predictions around of longevity and warnings of self-destructive demise have been laughably wrong thus far. He's still around, he's still recruiting his ass off (which is his baseline, btw) and he's dealing with setbacks by addressing and upgrading them, non-medicinally. His pace entering Year 6 is the stuff statues are made of.
So the idea that this is the last charted season should have gone away when Meyer deviated from his trajectory a few seasons ago - we've been off-script since Cardale Jones was covered in confetti. The anxiety that this era is on the verge of a transition is now only founded in superstition.
We were programmed to believe it would end too soon. It's part of the reason Buckeye fans have conspicuously side-eyed Tom Herman since he left to get requisite head coaching experience elsewhere Ohio for Texas. Who's next? How long can this last?
That anxiety was founded in parallels we constructed in 2011 when a beleaguered prodigy decided to return to coaching with - allegedly - healthier approach to achieving at the highest level. It was unproven at the time, but there's no indication that we're due for another hospital visit or frenetic exit from the profession.
It's Year 6 and we are still trying to predict Ohio State's future by shoehorning in Meyer's previous timelines. We're still making parallels for paranoid reasons. Fortunately, in a few months we will completely run out of them.
