Alabama’s Nick Saban is the best in the business, but Ohio State is coached by the second-best, and this we know for sure: Urban Meyer won’t be fazed by the vaunted SEC Speed. Meyer, see, was the biggest reason we talked about SEC Speed in the first place.
In January 2007, his Florida Gators entered the BCS title game a touchdown underdog against Ohio State. They won in a whoosh. Percy Harvin dashed through the defense and Derrick Harvey whirled around end to pressure Heisman winner Troy Smith. Final score: Gators 41, Buckeyes 14.
It would take seven more years for the SEC not to win the BCS title and most of the time, speed was indeed the determinant. Today Meyer coaches Ohio State, the victim of SEC flash in Years 1 and 2 of the league’s seven-year reign. Back then, the Buckeyes appeared ponderous by comparison. One thing no Meyer team has ever been is ponderous.
“The (speed) gap is closing,” Meyer said, speaking at Tuesday’s media day. Then this: “When I was at Florida, we were the fastest team in the country. I don’t know how you measure that, but we were fast.”
As for Ohio State: “Are we as fast as an SEC team? At certain positions, we certainly are.”
Some have held that SEC Speed is a myth. Meyer isn’t among them. “There was always conversation about the (speed of the defensive) front sevens in the SEC, and there’s a lot of truth in that. Our front seven is improved. We’re good, too … We are getting faster.”
Meyer retired from Florida for what he claimed were health reasons after the 2010 season. He unretired a year later, leaping into the breach opened when Jim Tressel resigned in disgrace. History hasn’t been kind to Meyer’s Florida days: The former Gator Aaron Hernandez, more recently a New England Patriot, awaits trial for murder, and Meyer’s failed successor, Will Muschamp, said after his final game that he’d been hired “to clean up the program.”
Still, there’s no denying this: Meyer can really coach. He went undefeated at Utah. He won two BCS titles at Florida. He enters the Sugar Bowl having gone 36-3 since arriving in Columbus. The Buckeyes lost No. 1 quarterback Braxton Miller in preseason and J.T. Barrett, Miller’s replacement, in the regular-season finale, but Cardale Jones presided over the 59-0 thrashing of Wisconsin that enabled the Buckeyes to leap TCU in the playoff rankings.
Even down to its third-string quarterback, it would be no surprise if Meyer’s team gives Bama a rough go. In the history of the BCS title game, nobody — not even Saban — did a better coaching job than Meyer did against Ohio State.
First he lobbied his team past Michigan just to get to Glendale, Ariz. Then he had to convince the Gators that they belonged there, which he did by suggesting that they didn’t. “We were a very angry team,” Meyer said. “We stoked a few fires. I used everything. I said, ‘You don’t deserve to be here.’ A lot of it was true; a lot of it was made up. You use any angle to get 18-year-olds to play.”
Now he’s representing the Big Ten, trying to take down the flagship program not just of the snooty SEC but of college football. Meyer said Tuesday that his Buckeyes “are close but not there yet,” but they aren’t all that far away, either.
The man, it must be said, misses nothing. After the 2012 season, when sanctions prevented Ohio State from gracing a bowl, he went to Oregon to observe how Chip Kelly and the Ducks conducted business. Later he flew to Miami and witnessed Alabama’s 42-14 dissection of Notre Dame for the BCS title, filing details for future reference.
“I used it with our team,” Meyer said, speaking of Alabama’s excellence that night. “They played very well with their hands. I watched them in warmups. We’ve gotten much better with our hands.”
You’d never bet against Saban in a game like this, but it’s hard to imagine Meyer getting outflanked. (He and Saban split their two SEC championship face-offs.) By strict definition, the Sugar Bowl is only a semifinal, but darned if it doesn’t feel like a championship bout — and the absolute apex of collegiate coaching.
About the Author
