Meyer shouldn’t beg for recruiting competition

The annual Big Ten football coaches meeting came and went Monday without anybody rolling up his sleeves and resorting to a machismo fisticuffs battle with Ohio State’s Urban Meyer. From a practical standpoint, it probably was the right move. Still, the football player inside most coaches had to at least feel like coming to blows with one of the newest kids on the block for his recent antics.

Meyer is no doubt one of the most talented and fiercely competitive coaches in the country. He also can come off as an annoyance because of his know-it-all style. Last week, he was at it again when he told a Columbus radio station of his intention to speak with Big Ten coaches about how to improve recruiting across the conference. Meyer cited the success of the SEC — his former conference — in recruiting as a comparison.

"I don’t know enough about what goes on in the other programs," Meyer admitted of the Big Ten. "I know I have a lot of respect for the tradition and their historical success they’ve had. But we do need, as a conference, to keep pushing the envelope to be better.

"And I think all our conversations, we’re going to have a Big Ten meeting here in a week … and our whole conversation needs to be, ‘How do we recruit?’ When you see 11 of the SEC teams in the top 25 in recruiting, that is something we need to continue to work on and improve."

Maybe Meyer feels he has reason to play recruiting cop. Ohio State finished last week’s National Signing Day with the No. 1 recruiting class in the nation, according to Scout.com. Only Michigan (No. 2) and Nebraska (No. 11) were in the top 40 among Big Ten teams. The rest looked like this: Illinois (41), Michigan State (43), Penn State (44), Northwestern (45), Wisconsin (48), Indiana (49), Iowa (51), Purdue (56) and Minnesota (73).

The SEC, meanwhile, had six programs rank in the top 10: Alabama (3), Texas A&M (6), Florida (7), LSU (8), Georgia (9) and Mississippi (10). Auburn was 14, Vanderbilt 19, Mississippi State 21 and South Carolina 23, making 10 schools in the top 25.

In one sense, Meyer is right. The Big Ten is not the elite-level conference the SEC is and likely won’t be anytime soon. But in a bigger sense, Meyer’s decision to speak out seems misguided. If he wants to worry about recruiting, he should stay out of other programs’ backyards and concern himself with his own.

You think Wisconsin’s coaching staff spends one second worrying about why the Badgers aren’t among the top 25 in recruiting rankings? You think Wisconsin cares that Purdue or Minnesota doesn’t have the best recruiting class in the country?

First-year Wisconsin coach Gary Andersen is hardly one to cause controversy. On National Signing Day, he insisted he would continue the tradition established by former coaches Barry Alvarez and Bret Bielema, finding quality players and molding them to fit the Badgers’ system. And focusing on the Wisconsin system rather than the recruiting star-system seems to have worked just fine for the Badgers.

"We’re not a program that’s caught up in stars," Andersen said Feb. 6. "We’re caught in a program that’s going to evaluate young men and if they fit our program and the University of Wisconsin from an education standpoint and from an athletic standpoint. We’re taking them whether it’s one star or five stars or 20 stars. It doesn’t matter.

"If I’ve got assistant coaches who are looking for stars to recruit people, I think you’re putting yourself in a really bad spot down the line. The true evaluation of a recruiting class is three years from now, not on Signing Day by whoever goes through and ranks kids with stars. We don’t get caught up in that at all. It’s great stuff to talk about, I get all that, but we love the kids in our program. We’re excited about them."

As Wisconsin can attest to, producing a top 25 recruiting class is a nice feather in your cap, but it doesn’t define a program’s success. 

Wisconsin finished with the No. 48-ranked recruiting class this year, according to Scout.com. And the Badgers never produced a top-25 recruiting class in the previous seven seasons under Bielema. Yet Wisconsin is the three-time defending Big Ten champion and has appeared in three consecutive Rose Bowls.

Ohio State finished 12-0 in Meyer’s first season last year and, if not for NCAA sanctions levied against the previous regime, the Buckeyes likely would have played for a national championship. But it is in Meyer’s best interest for the Big Ten to progress because the perception of an undefeated Buckeyes team would improve if the teams around his were better. Next season, Ohio State’s non-conference schedule features home games against Buffalo, San Diego State and Florida A&M. And a weak Big Ten would hinder the Buckeyes’ chances to reach the national title game.

Meyer reportedly never broached the subject of recruiting during Monday’s Big Ten coaches meeting after all. Maybe he had a change of heart. Or maybe he simply didn’t want to engage in a war of words or worse.

Meyer needs to recognize there is more than one way to achieve success. And right now, he should concern himself with maintaining success in his own program. Speaking out unnecessarily on behalf of others can only end badly. 


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