Urban Meyer Proves He's College Football's Top Coach After OSU Conquers Alabama

As confetti rained down on the winner's podium after a classic showdown between No. 4 Ohio State and No. 1 Alabama, college football's top coach picked up the Sugar Bowl Trophy and hoisted it over his head.

A majority of the experts, oddsmakers and fans around the country expected that to be Nick Saban, the head man of a Crimson Tide team that entered the Sugar Bowl as nine-point favorites. But that distinction now belongs to Urban Meyer after the Buckeyes beat the Tide 42-35 to advance to the national championship game against Oregon. 

Meyer was growing tired of hearing about the SEC's superiority and how the Big Ten couldn't hang with the elite teams in college football. He was on a mission Thursday night to change that narrative. 

“We're a bunch of good coaches and players that worked their tails off and investing in a lot of resources into these traditionally great programs," Meyer said, according to Patrick Maks of Eleven Warriors. "Because at some point it gets exhausting when you keep hearing and hearing [about the conference hierarchy] and then you start believing.”

But Meyer changed that perception with a brilliant performance against Alabama on one of college football's biggest stages. 

It wasn't supposed to unfold that way. The SEC West was touted as the best division in college football earlier this season after it placed four teams (Mississippi State, Auburn, Ole Miss and Alabama) in the top six of the first rankings released by the playoff selection committee. All four of those teams fell flat in the postseason, though, going 0-4 in their New Year's Eve and New Year's Day bowl games.

Alabama was undone by a coach and a team with something to prove. 

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Meyer spent a majority of the 2014 season overcoming adversity that would have hampered most coaches. The Buckeyes lost the two-time Big Ten MVP before the season even started when quarterback Braxton Miller reinjured his shoulder in fall camp. Three months later, in the regular-season finale against Michigan, Ohio State lost the Heisman Trophy candidate who emerged in Miller's place when J.T. Barrett fractured his ankle.

That was no problem for Meyer, who plugged in third-string quarterback Cardale Jones with six days to prepare for Wisconsin's second-ranked defense in the Big Ten title game. The result was a historic 59-0 thrashing that vaulted Ohio State into the College Football Playoff.

Many questioned whether the Buckeyes belonged, as the selection committee left Big 12 members Baylor and TCU on the outside looking in. With a quarterback who only had one game of starting experience under his belt, how could the Buckeyes possibly beat an Alabama team that had more than three weeks to prepare?

Meyer had the answer.

He found a way to run on the Tide's vaunted front seven, which came into the game leading the country in run defense as it hadn't allowed a single rusher to gain more than 83 yards all season. That was before Ohio State running back Ezekiel Elliott gashed Alabama for 230 yards and two touchdowns on just 20 carries, which included the game-clinching 85-yard touchdown jaunt late in the fourth quarter.

Meyer got Jones to settle down and beat Kirby Smart's complicated defensive scheme after a rough start that included five straight incompletions at the beginning of the game and a bad second-quarter interception.

He schemed perfectly against the best wide receiver in college football as Amari Cooper was limited to just 71 receiving yards, his third-worst output in a season that set team and SEC records for total receptions.

Most importantly, Meyer found a way to overcome a 15-point first-half deficit to beat the Tide. After Ohio State fell in a 21-6 hole, it went on a 36-7 run before closing out the seven-point victory.

When the clock hit zero and the Buckeyes swarmed the field in celebration, ESPN's Holly Rowe asked Meyer if his team was finally good enough to play with the elites of the college football world.

“That was a sledgehammer game,” Meyer said, via the ESPN broadcast. “That was a classic. We are good enough.”

The Buckeyes were good enough because they have the best coach in college football at the helm. 

All stats via NCAA.com. 

David Regimbal covers Ohio State football for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @davidreg412.