Ohio State Football: Predicting Where Urban Meyer Will Rank Among Buckeyes Elite

Urban Meyer is arguably the coach with the highest profile that Ohio State has ever hired.

Some of the best coaches in school history—Woody Hayes and Jim Tressel—were more low-profile hires that became high-profile coaches, even though their careers ended in unfortunate circumstances.

Meyer's resume was more decorated than any coach Ohio State has hired, even more than John Cooper's who had just come off a Rose Bowl win in 1987 over Michigan.

Fans believed that as soon as Tressel resigned as head coach on Memorial Day 2011 due to the NCAA investigation surrounding "Tattoogate," Urban Meyer became a serious option for head coach.

Everywhere Meyer has gone in his short coaching career, he has not only turned programs around, he has won, and won big. He is the first coach of a non-AQ team to win a BCS bowl and won two national championships in three years while at Florida.

The early results of Meyer's career are nothing short of stunning, as he seems to have reignited the passion of the football program as well as driven OSU forward to the path of playing for a national championship, in 2013 of course.

Meyer's football is certainly exciting football, putting up big numbers and flashy plays from shovel passes to TEs to buy punt blocks.

It's not just flash, though. It gets wins based on old formulas that just look like flash.

And at Ohio State, legacy is determined by three things: beating Michigan, winning Big Ten Championships and winning national championships.

Hayes and Tressel each did that, the former more so than the latter, even before the last year of Tressel's career was vacated.

The year Meyer can bring Ohio State a national championship—the school's second since the turn of the century, which only three schools have done this decade—is the year he can instantly cement his legacy among the greatest in school history.

He is already among the top five coaches in college football, even after a year away from the game which has him looking like a new man.

He will have to wait a season before he can play for a national title due to the NCAA sanctions, but he certainly has his new team in position to compete for one down the road, either in 2013 or 2014 depending on how he develops Braxton Miller.

If he's able to dominate Michigan the way Hayes and Tressel did along with picking up a national title or two, there is a chance there will be a street named after him that intersects Woody Hayes Drive in front of the Horseshoe.

No one can top Hayes, but a great career can make Meyer his equal.

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