Urban Meyer came to Ohio State an inherited a flawed roster that lacked depth. A month later, the NCAA sanctioned his new school.
He responded by going 12-0 his first year with the only thing keeping him from a national title game appearance being the aforementioned sanctions.
Meyer never whined about it. He never complained. He just showed up to work and did his job.
So it should be of no surprise Meyer has major beef with coaches, like Texas coach Tom Herman and current South Carolina and former Florida coach Will Muschamp, who blame players for their losses.
“I told our guys to never get used to this feeling," Herman told reporters after losing by 10 at home to unranked Maryland.
"But that if we all thought we were going to come in here and in nine months sprinkle some fairy dust on this team and think that we’ve arrived, then we were wrong.”
Meyer thought that was a little over the top.
From Dennis Dodd at cbssports.com:
"C'mon man. I don't know where that came from. It's like a new generation of excuse. [Herman] said, 'I can't rub pixie dust on this thing.' He got a dose of reality. Maryland just scored 51 points on you.
"Players read that."
And while Muschamp never directly complained about the cupboard being bare, he did say he "fixed" the previously "broken" culture — a word Meyer had used to describe that locker room he left.
But Muschamp still had talent.
"You had Jeff Driskel, Chris Rainey, Jeff Demps, that whole defense got drafted."
Meyer, in fact, sounds completely over anybody talking about "their own players."
"Those are your players. I hear TV guys [say], 'Wait until they get their own players in there.' They're our players. What do you mean 'their players?' The minute you sign a contract, they're your players."
The whole interview is worth a click, because Meyer is rarely as impassioned and candid with media as he was over this issue.
Now we just have to hope Meyer and Herman are at their respective schools in 2022 when Ohio State heads to Austin to play Texas.
