CRISIS MODE
Would Buckeyes be OK without Meyer?
Ohio State needs only to look back to September to see how the right promotion can maintain a national power’s winning ways under adverse circumstances. As questions circled around Oklahoma’s rookie coach, the win against the Buckeyes on the second Saturday of the season drastically changed the national perception of the team’s chances of reaching the College Football Playoff.
The comparison between the current dilemma facing Ohio State and the situation at Oklahoma last season isn’t exact: OU’s surprise coaching move came in the quiet days of early June, for one, and the decision was immediately made to name Lincoln Riley as Bob Stoops’ permanent successor, not his interim replacement.
The Buckeyes, on the other hand, have temporarily named co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Ryan Day as the team’s interim coach as the university continues its independent investigation into Urban Meyer’s handling of the allegations of domestic abuse involving former assistant coach Zach Smith.
Even as Meyer issues a strongly worded statement claiming he followed all proper “protocols and procedures” in the wake of a 2015 incident involving Smith and his ex-wife, and as Smith says that Ohio State administrators — namely, athletics director Gene Smith — were aware of the allegations, the potential remains that even if Meyer is not fired he might face a suspension entering this coming season.
Amid a spotty track record of interim hires, however, the Sooners’ successful season, culminating in a Big 12 Conference title and Rose Bowl loss to Georgia in the College Football Playoff semifinals, provides an example of how a supremely talented team can fend off potential hurdles and roadblocks to reach its full potential after an unsettling coaching change.
But for every Dabo Swinney, who replaced Tommy Bowden midway through the 2010 season and has since staked claim to an elite spot in the coaching profession, there’s a John L. Smith, who won four games with an Arkansas team rattled by the offseason dismissal of Bobby Petrino in 2012. And for every Clay Helton, who turned the interim job at Southern California into the permanent position, there are countless temporary replacements who try and fail to milk the most out of a roster wobbled by an unexpected coaching change.
“It’s a hard situation,” said Smith, now the head coach at Kentucky State. “In a situation like that, it’s almost like the glue is gone. To hold everything together was difficult, without a doubt. It’s almost like you’re a fighting dog with no teeth.
“That’s kind of the way it seemed. Once you had a little adversity, it was like, ‘Well, this guy’s not going to be here. We don’t know who will be here. Who’s going to be the next head guy coming in?’ It continued to fragment a little bit.”
To a degree, there is a model for this scenario at Ohio State. The university fired Jim Tressel in May 2011 after it found he had misled NCAA officials about the nature of violations that occurred during his tenure. In his stead, Ohio State promoted then-assistant coach Luke Fickell, now the head coach at Cincinnati. Ranked No. 16 in the preseason Amway Coaches Poll, the Buckeyes dropped out of a national ranking after a loss to Miami in September and finished with a losing record for the first time since 1988.
Two other examples this decade of interim coaches taking over in the summer saw Everett Withers and Jim Grobe, respectively, finish 7-6 with North Car- olina and Baylor.
Yet there is little precedent for the situation unfolding in Columbus, which in recent college history is mirrored by Florida’s decision to fire Charley Pell three games into the 1983 season amid rampant NCAA violations. There’s the timing, just as the Buckeyes are kicking off fall camp. There’s the name involved: Meyer is a legendary figure, one of the most successful coaches of his era or any other, and the only coach with the pedigree to be mentioned in the same breath as Alabama’s Nick Saban. And there’s the team: Ohio State, ranked third in the preseason poll, might house the most talented roster in the Football Bowl Subdivision.
It’s a roster with two 1,000yard running backs. One, sophomore J.K. Dobbins, is a Heisman Trophy contender. The offense is projected to find more balance under a new quarterback, Dwayne Haskins, though we’ve heard that before. The de- fensive line is among the nation’s best. Each of the program’s past three recruiting classes have ranked among the top four nationally, according to the composite rankings compiled by 247Sports.com.
One active Big Ten coach, who spoke to USA TODAY on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the situation, said the potential impact of Meyer’s dismissal on the Buckeyes’ upcoming season is impossible to ignore. Even still, he continued, the staff Meyer has hired is talented enough to keep Ohio State afloat and in the mix for the College Football Playoff.
In other words, Ohio State might be too big — too talented, with a depth chart loaded with NFL talent and led by several veteran coaches — to fail.
That might be true, even if little is known of Day’s ability to pilot the Buckeyes not just through what might be a tumultuous fall camp but also the regular season. Day, a Chip Kelly disciple, is well-regarded in coaching circles and a particular favorite at Ohio State, where he’s quickly impressed both Meyer and university administrators since being hired before last season.
And while Day has never been a head coach on any level, he can rely on two assistants with ample experience: Greg Schiano was the longtime head coach at Rutgers, and Kevin Wilson was formerly the head coach at Indiana.
For the Buckeyes, it’s not a matter of talent but rather a question of direction. Meyer’s greatest gift as a coach hasn’t been his on-field philosophies, which were once ahead of the curve but are now the norm, but instead his ability to motivate. In that sense, he’s irreplaceable.
But the crucial question this team must answer asks: As Ohio State enters what would be the seventh season of Meyer’s tenure, are the Buckeyes built to survive his potential absence?