Why Urban Meyer Will Return Ohio State Buckeyes to Big Ten Elite

When it was announced that Urban Meyer would be the new head coach at Ohio State, every college football fan outside of Columbus gave a collective groan. With a two-time national champion coach taking over for the Buckeyes, Ohio State would be vaulted back into the Big Ten elite and national title picture.

Buckeye haters from outside the Big Ten can take solace in the fact that Meyer's squad will be held out of a bowl game for one year.

But for those living in Wisconsin, Nebraska and Michigan, the fun starts now.

Meyer will essentially make Ohio State an SEC school. He will put in his own SEC-approved scheme and use the relationships he already has down south to recruit the players he needs to run that scheme effectively.

Over the last six years, the SEC is 11-6 against the Big Ten in bowl games alone. Add in regular season matchups and that record only gets more lopsided. The SEC clearly has the upper hand on the Big Ten.

Meyer himself is 4-1 against the Big Ten. One of those wins came from when he was at Bowling Green and the rest are from Florida's bowl games.

The lone loss came to Michigan in the 2007 Capital One Bowl.

At Ohio State, Meyer will no longer be only facing the cream of the Big Ten crop that he did at Florida.

He will face perennial bowl ineligibles Indiana and Minnesota and will be able to unload on over-matched second-tier schools like Michigan State and Nebraska.

Meyer will only have a few real tests to deal with, so long as he is running his SEC style effectively.

Those will be Michigan and Wisconsin.

The Wolverines are back in the top tier of college football after new coach Brady Hoke led them to a win in the Allstate Sugar Bowl, and Wisconsin won't be the same without Russel Wilson at quarterback, they do have Heisman finalist Montee Ball returning.

The only question is whether Meyer will be able to bring the SEC to Ohio State.

Ohio State has been the butt of many jokes after losing consecutive BCS National Championship games to SEC schools, so they knows first-hand how big the gap is between the SEC and Big Ten elite.

As I mentioned earlier, Meyer has good relationships with high schools in the fertile recruiting grounds of Florida and will have no problem bringing in top recruits. He has already proven this by bringing in the sixth-best recruiting class, according to ESPN's rankings.

Prior to the hiring of Meyer, Ohio State was nowhere to be seen inside the top 25 recruiting classes, thus showing it's the man, not necessarily the school.

Meyer also has a brilliant football mind and will have no problem communicating his new scheme to existing players.

Sophomore quarterback Braxton Miller has the ideal skill set for Meyer's offense, so it won't take two or three years for the coaching change to start seeing results. They might not have a national championship-caliber season right out of the gate, but they will certainly be among the Big Ten elite.

For Ohio State to start thinking "national championship," Meyer will need a year or two to get all of the key positions filled with his own guys. He's lucky to have Miller as his quarterback, as that will certainly ease the transition. 

But come 2013 or 2014 (given that Miller doesn't bolt for the NFL early), Meyer will have a team ready to contend with any conference for a national championship.

The one-year bowl ban effectively eliminates Ohio State from contention this year, but Buckeye fans still have plenty to be excited about. Their new coach will revolutionize the way football is played at Ohio State and will eventually have the school back playing in national title games.

For now though, the Ohio State faithful will have to be happy with a return to the Big Ten elite.