College Football Recruiting Rankings 2012: Urban Meyer Picking on the Big Ten

Ohio State head football coach Urban Meyer is already picking on the Big Ten, and the college football season hasn't even started.

This guy's going to be good, and that may be an understatement. If his track record in college football says anything, he's going to be great.

There's no questioning the fact that Ohio State took quite a hit when Jim Tressel was forced to resign because of the improper benefits scandal. Things got even worse when the NCAA hit the school with sanctions, and a dismal 6-7 season acted as the proverbial cherry on top of the Buckeyes' nightmare year.

Let's be frank, Ohio State was on its way out in the Big Ten.

With Michigan State and Wisconsin looking like contenders, Michigan rebuilding in a strong way and teams like Nebraska and Iowa acting as wild cards, the Big Ten was starting to look like a big problem for the hurting Buckeyes.

No offense to interim coach Luke Fickell, but he's not necessarily a brand name coach that your average 4- or 5-star recruit would want to play for, and the prestige of the Ohio State name was definitely tattered.

Recruiting was going to be a problem for the Buckeyes, but Meyer changed that outlook very fast.

The Buckeyes came out of national singing day with the No. 5-ranked recruiting class according to rivals.com, and according to Kelly Whiteside of USA Today, six players in Meyer's first class were initially committed to other Big Ten programs:

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Six signees in the 25-player class, which includes six early enrollees, initially committed to other Big Ten schools -- Penn State, Michigan State and Wisconsin. Two others had committed to Notre Dame.

When asked about "flipping" players, Meyer said, "I don't look at it that way. You ask if they're interested. If they say, 'No,' you move on."

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Are they interested?

Of course they are.

All Meyer is doing is asking them if they want to play for arguably one of the better coaches of our time, at one of the most prolific schools of all time.

Consider that Penn State is going to be a mess for a while because of the Jerry Sandusky issue, Michigan State and Wisconsin are losing key players to the NFL draft, and Notre Dame is one of the most inconsistent and underachieving programs in the nation.

What about Michigan, you ask?

If the choice came down between playing at Michigan with Brady Hoke or at Ohio State, I dare say most recruits that didn't have emotional ties to the school would pick the coach with the championships.

Meyer is already destroying the Big Ten.

A one-year bowl ban means nothing to these recruits compared to playing for a coach with two national titles under his belt.

Give it a year—two at the most—and Urban Meyer will have Ohio State on top of the Big Ten once again.