Big Ten Football: Which Coach Wins the Title for Most Hated?

When the tweet went out from Adam Rittenberg and Brian Bennett that a post on their Big Ten blog would be for all the "haters", it had to be good news. Indeed it was, as they posted a poll on which Big Ten coach is currently the most hated.

To clarify the results a little bit, Rittenberg and Bennett limited the choices to Urban Meyer and Brady Hoke, who are running roughshod over the rest of the league in recruiting already, and Bret Bielema and Mark Dantonio, the coaches with the most recent success and the major rivals of the two biggest fan bases in the conference.

The results after about 16,000 votes are as follows: Meyer leads with about 36 percent of the vote, a ringing endorsement for a man who has not won a single game at Ohio State yet. However, his strong armed recruiting tactics and brash manner have already rubbed many fans the wrong way, not to mention the Florida/SEC fans who may read the blog.

Bielema comes in a close second at 33 percent, which is impressive for a Wisconsin coach. However, Bielema has made a bad habit of making enemies or saying stupid things in press conferences. Plus, he has taken the Badgers to two straight Rose Bowl games, only to lose on behalf of the conference.

Dantonio ranks third at 22 percent, which puts him well ahead of Hoke, at 9 percent. Although Hoke may quickly gain the ire of Buckeye and Spartan fans again, Bielema has probably split the vote a bit, after ruining Michigan State's season and taking on the new coach on the block Meyer.

Do the fans have it right thus far? I think if you told Ohio State fans four months ago that they would have the most hated coach in the conference right after National Signing Day, they would take it. Again, success breeds contempt, and Meyer is off to a good start.

Despite all that, it is surprising that Hoke did not get a little more of the vote, and surprising that Bielema does not lead the race. Perhaps Bielema gets some love for not being afraid to poke the beast that is Ohio State (which was dominant before Wisconsin's recent run atop the conference), but he has not made many friends at the bottom of the conference by running up the score against teams like Indiana.

That being said, given the four choices this is probably a good ordering. Meyer will probably rocket up the percentage lead if he puts Ohio State back at the top of the conference when the real games finally begin in a few months.

However, the poll could have been a little more interesting with a few more choices. Of the other current coaches in the Big Ten, Bo Pelini seems to have the perfect mix of annoyance from his own fans and some strong history of being hated in the Big 12.

Nebraska might not have enough success yet to be truly an annoyance in the Big Ten, but the Cornhuskers certainly came in with a lot of false confidence. Pelini likely would have outperformed Hoke considering the results we can see.

Any coach that has been around for more than a decade like Kirk Ferentz should also make the list. You can make a lot of enemies in that time period, thanks to big wins over all the Big Ten programs. However, at least one could expect that Ferentz would have likely finished dead last on the hated list compared to these other coaches.

The needle does not move much for hating an Iowa coach willing to stay around for this long. However, it would have been an interesting case study.

Although the poll was limited to current coaches, it would have been interesting to add a couple recent coaches who drew the ire of a lot of Big Ten fans. With success breeds contempt, and nothing breeds contempt like Ohio State and Penn State.

Given that Jim Tressel and Joe Paterno have also recently drawn the ire of their own respective fan bases (Tressel more than Paterno, obviously), they would probably have ranked right up there with Bielema and Meyer, if not higher.

Add Rich Rodriguez into the mix, and the Michigan fans would have had something to vote for that isn't named OSU coach. Rodriguez wrecked a great program for three tumultuous years, and even brought some rare NCAA trouble for the Wolverines.

With Rodriguez, Tressel and Paterno on the list with Pelini, it is likely that Bielema and Meyer would have had a run for the most hated title.

So who would you vote for, given these additional choices? Take a vote over to the right and speak your mind in the comments. Thanks for reading.