The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Ohio St. coach calls Big Ten as good as SEC
But head-to-head results suggest that a gap continues.
CHICAGO — Ohio State coach Urban Meyer doesn’t just believe the Big Ten has closed the gap with the more heralded Southeastern Conference. He is convinced the race is a dead heat already.
“I don’t think there’s a gap at all,” Meyer said Monday at Big Ten media days. “I’ve coached in the SEC East when that was one of the strongest in the country. And I think the Big Ten East right now is every bit as strong as I can remember the SEC East,” where he won two national championships at Florida.
Numbers suggest the Big Ten still has work to do.
The SEC dominated the Big Ten the last two seasons, when it won six of the eight meetings between them. Its average margin of victory was 23.8 points. Five of the wins were by 14 points or more.
The Big Ten won the other two games by a total of 36 points, largely the result of Michigan’s 41-7 rout of Florida in the 2016 Citrus Bowl.
The SEC was 2-1 in headto-head matchups last season. The lone Big Ten success? Wisconsin 16, LSU 14.
“I thought recruiting, I was shocked at the disrespect the Big Ten had in 2012,” said Meyer, referring to his first season with the Buckeyes. “I don’t feel that at all anymore. I feel a great amount of respect nationally about the Big Ten. You sit and look at the national recruiting rankings and you see the Big Ten everywhere, all over the place, and that’s the way it should be.
“So there’s a lot of credit to be given, obviously to the administrations that invest in their programs and to the coaching staffs that are out there doing the work. And this is as tough a conference as there is.”
Meyer won a national championship at Ohio State in the 2014 season, beating Oregon.
Iowa: Kirk Ferentz enters his 19th season at Iowa as the longest-tenured Football Bowl Subdivision coach in the country. “I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about it,” Ferentz said. “I feel very, very fortunate. This will be my, I guess, 28th year at Iowa and feel fortunate that, in 1981, I somehow, some way, ended up there as an assistant.”
Bob Stoops was the longest-tenured active coach in major college football, taking the job at Oklahoma a day before Ferentz started at Iowa. But Stoops retired this summer after 18 seasons.
The Hawkeyes are coming off an 8-5 season and Ferentz has promoted his son, Brian, to run the offense. Former coordinator Ken O’Keefe is back as the quarterbacks coach in hopes of sparking what was a lackluster offense.
Stoops was a player at Iowa when Ferentz arrived and they later worked together.
“So in my mind, we lost one of the good coaches in this game, one of the best that’s ever coached,” Ferentz said. “But I’m happy for him. He’s totally at peace.”
Michigan State: Coach Mark Dantonio promised to re-establish a program beset by disciplinary issues last season by using the same “inch-by-inch” philosophy that made MSU a playoff team.
“Sometimes you’re measured a little bit by how you handle the problems, not just in all the good times,” Dantonio said. “We’ve had some good times and those are easy to stand up there and sing the fight song and put a hat on.
“Not as easy when you are going through these type of things,” he added, referring to last season’s 3-9. “But ... I was hired to solve problems and that’s what we’re going to do.”