Ohio State Football: Chris Rainey Totally Snitched on Urban Meyer

This Urban Meyer favoritism story is not going away. Former Florida RB Chris Rainey sat down with Julie Quittner of GTN News, on camera, and named names of players that the Florida coaches were "scared of" (his words)—Percy Harvin, Tim Tebow and Brandon Spikes among them. 

It should be mentioned that Rainey also points out that these guys were, y'know, really good at college football. That is a significant aspect to all of this, because if the price to pay for having a bunch of All-Americans is that they turn into golden boys at practice, well, that's probably a trade-off most coaches and fans would take.

All that said, what on earth is Rainey doing giving this interview in the first place? I'm an ardent admirer of speaking truth to power, but Rainey's just singing state secrets with only the slightest bit of provocation from Quittner (who did a phenomenal job on multiple levels on this interview).

Being that Rainey's preparing for the 2012 NFL draft, where he's projected somewhere in the middle rounds, the last thing he needs to do is make potential GMs think he could be a PR liability down the line.

It'll be interesting to see the fallout from this interview. Rainey's probably going to get some private pressure to retract his comments or get them more in line with what Meyer has admitted, lest Rainey come across as "unpredictable" this close to the draft. Personally, I don't think he should walk the comments back. You can't un-ring that bell, for starters, and there's no honor in not owning the things you say.

Meanwhile, Meyer's certainly got the right to just say "I've discussed it enough already and nothing in my answers has changed," but Rainey's comments were specific and damaging enough—he said the coaches were scared of Tim Tebow, for crying out loud—that someone ought to at least ask Meyer about the veracity of Rainey's claims.

If that someone is as pressing for specifics as Quittner was during her Rainey interview, so much the better.