Ohio State Football: Why Urban Meyer as Coach Would Not Be a Buckeye Bust

The popular opinion around Columbus is that the Ohio State head coaching job is Urban Meyer's to take at the conclusion of the season.

While some fans still have their reservations about the two-time BCS National Champion head coach taking the job for various reasons, others are afraid he will be a bust in Columbus.

People believe that because of whatever potential sanctions could be on the horizon in the next few weeks, Meyer's ability to put OSU back at the top is unlikely to happen.

Urban's track record speaks otherwise.

He was won at every level, from mid-major Bowling Green to BCS-buster Utah to powerhouse Florida.

Meyer has said time and again that Ohio State is his dream job. 

The Ashtabula, Ohio native has a portrait of Woody Hayes hanging in his home office. 

And while Meyer has been linked to the Penn State job, it seems as if Ohio State is the most likely destination for his next career move.

However, some people are still worried that what he would bring to Ohio State would be the same disaster that hot names at other power programs have been like Rich Rodriguez at Michigan. That couldn't be further from the truth for one big reason: defense.

At Florida, Meyer had incredibly elite defenses in the final few seasons as the head coach. His units were aggressive, shutdown forces that put other offenses into submission.

And with explosive offenses, that only made his defenses much, much tougher. While Meyer is known as an offensive guru, his defenses have been just as lethal as well.

Whereas with Rodriguez, for example, while he eventually got the offense at Michigan to be explosive, he did so at the sacrifice of mediocre defenses.

Meyer is among the best recruiters in college football, and putting him in a talent-rich area like Ohio will only continue the fencing-in effect Jim Tressel had for the past decade, keeping the best players in-state.

Now it's far from a sure thing that Urban Meyer will take the Ohio State job when offered, although it is a given that he is the favorite and certainly will be offered the job at season's end.

It could be a scenario where Meyer doesn't take the job either due to his TV obligations or if he doesn't feel up to the job, but we have discussed before that if he doesn't want the job now, he might not have a chance at it for a very long time.

The bust rate for Meyer is extremely low due to the depth of the recruiting pool at Ohio State, the resources that come with the job and the low level of depth of quality teams in the Big Ten.

Everyone knows playing in the Big Ten is much easier than in the SEC. The number of quality teams in the conference is less than you will find down in the SEC. It's simply a fact of modern college football.

So, it seems a given that Meyer will have success at Ohio State.

And most believe that if Ohio State could continue the run of talented defenses it has had in the 21st century and add competent offenses, t could've won multiple championships under Jim Tressel.

We will see if that theory holds up if Meyer becomes the new man at Ohio State.

Like Tressel, he could soon become a failure if he creates the expectation where a one-loss season is a failure, but just getting to that point makes him a success.

And if he can at worst replicate what he did at Florida, there may be another street named for him on the campus of Ohio State intersecting that of his boyhood idol, Woody Hayes.

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