Urban Meyer: Tom Herman, Will Muschamp Blaming Inherited Players Is 'Excuse'

Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer said it drives him "insane" when new college football coaches blame the previous staff for any of their early failures.

On Thursday, Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports relayed remarks from the leader of the Buckeyes program, who referenced Texas' Tom Herman and South Carolina's Will Muschamp as examples of the issue.

"C'mon man. I don't know where that came from," Meyer said. "It's like a new generation of excuse. [Herman] said, 'I can't rub pixie dust on this thing.' He got a dose of reality. Maryland just scored 51 points on you."

He added Muschamp "blamed us for Florida," after inheriting the Gators from Meyer in 2011.

Herman, who worked as an offensive coordinator under Meyer at OSU from 2012 through 2014, took over the Texas job from Charlie Strong, who went 16-21 across three seasons before getting fired last November.

The Longhorns suffered a 51-41 upset loss in the former Houston head coach's debut last week. Afterward, he said it was clear there's plenty of work to do, per Paul Myerberg of USA Today.

"I told our guys to never get used to this feeling, but that if we all thought we were going to come in here and in nine months sprinkle some fairy dust on this team and think that we've arrived, then we were wrong," Herman said.

He added: "I don't know I was shocked. I was telling anybody that listened how good this football team was and that we were still a work in progress. So I don't know that shocked is the right word. Very disappointed."

Meyer told CBS Sports it's important for coaches in that position to remember players recruited by the previous regime are paying attention to those comments: "Players read that."

Of course, the 53-year-old head coach has always enjoyed immediate success when taking a new job. His first seasons at Bowling Green, Utah, Florida and Ohio State resulted in a combined 39-8 record, so he doesn't have much experience with working through early setbacks.