Urban Meyer: How Spread Offense Guru Will Resurrect Ohio State

Michigan's latest win over Ohio State will be the Wolverines' last for a long time.

With ESPN’s announcement that Urban Meyer will coach the Buckeyes next season, it’s pretty much guaranteed that Columbus will be hosting a championship parade sooner rather than later. Everything Meyer touches turns to gold.

He turned the mess that called itself Bowling Green into a winning program. Meyer then led Utah to an undefeated season. For his latest success, he turned Florida into one of the most explosive teams in college football history.

Buckeyes fans, for all the grief you’ve been forced to endure in the 2011 calendar year, New Year's Day is approaching rapidly and it’s going to bring great change. Imagine Meyer installing that spread offense with the freak athlete that is Braxton Miller taking snaps. The No. 1 quarterback prospect in the class of 2011 will without a doubt be a Heisman candidate next year in that offense.

No head coach in any level of football runs a more effective spread than Meyer. Too bad he didn’t get to run it with Terrelle Pryor. There isn't a quarterback in the history of the game that fit the system better than the now infamous Buckeye. 

If Meyer coached Ohio State during the Pryor era, the Buckeyes would’ve won multiple national titles.  Of course, the thought is hypothetical and could’ve never happened. Meyer was busy coaching a quarterback named Tim Tebow down in Gainesville to a couple titles, and Jim Tressel would’ve never even been fired if it weren’t for Pryor’s passion for getting tatted up.

Despite what could’ve or couldn’t have been, the Buckeyes boast a blindingly bright future. Combine the prestige of OSU with Meyer’s recruiting ability, and every 5-star high school prospect in the nation will be on Ohio State’s radar.

While plenty of question marks have clouded Columbus over the past handful of months, the only question Buckeyes fans will be asking after a season watching Meyer run their squad will be: Jim who?

David Daniels is a featured columnist at Bleacher Report and a syndicated writer. Follow him on Twitter.