Ohio State Football: Should we question the job Urban Meyer is doing?

There are serious problems on the Ohio State football team, and with the amount of talent on the roster some wonder if Urban should remain as head coach.

Some think the situation with the Ohio State football program be similar to one down south nearly a decade ago. Flashback to 2009, Urban Meyer is still the head coach of the Florida Gators and they were just defeated by Alabama in the SEC Championship game, 51-24. A few days later, Urban Meyer announced that he was taking a leave of absence from Florida after he was admitted to the hospital due to “health concerns.”

This is what we know now as the “fake heart attack” that so many have been quick to joke about, and for good reason.

It seemed as though Urban was trying to get out of a bad situation in Gainesville as it appeared that Alabama was a budding dynasty ready to take over the SEC. But, to his credit, and something that many people seem to forget, Urban Meyer did come back for the 2010 season but finished 7-5 in an underwhelming season and left for the same reasons as cited before.

He got a lot of slack for the misdoings he was in the center of in his time at Florida. Again this was for good reason, as everything around the situation seemed sketchy.

Flash forward to today and Urban Meyer is in the center of more controversy. Not only was he just in the center of a domestic abuse scandal involving one of his coaches, but he has now gone 4-1 as head coach in 2018 with a legitimate Heisman candidate at quarterback, And the one loss was to Purdue who had lost to Eastern Michigan earlier in the season.

Much like after his crushing loss to Alabama in 2009, there are a lot of questions being asked about the coaching staff, including Meyer. Don’t get me wrong here, it is good to ask questions, that is what makes Ohio State football so great.

We don’t settle for mediocrity and when it sprouts up we call it out. This past Saturday night, we saw mediocrity and a lot of it. We should expect more from Ohio State football teams.

Recently though, I have been seeing a lot of talk about how Urban Meyer is at odds with the university and fans have been wondering whether or not Meyer is the best person to lead this program.

I am here to give my opinion, and that opinion is that all of this criticism of Urban Meyer is completely blasphemous. Urban Meyer has a head coaching record of 181-31 in his career.

At Ohio State, his record is 77-9 with losses to Michigan State twice, Clemson twice, Virginia Tech, Penn State, Oklahoma, Iowa, and Purdue. It is completely crazy at this point, being 7-1 this season to question Urban Meyer’s job.

Even with my stance on the situation I slightly understand the other side of the argument. It is hard to see a team go through struggles. Especially when we are used to winning all of the time.

But to think that Ohio State Football is in the midst of a crisis, which is the picture that media and fans are painting around the program, is unfathomable to me. When Jim Tressell, left the Buckeyes and Luke Fickell took over leading the Buckeyes to a 6-7 record, that is a time to panic. This is just not the time for it yet.

Urban Meyer has been faced with problems at Ohio State before like taking the reigns of a sanctioned school coming off a 6-7 season. He led that team to a 12-0 record, and a #3 ranking in the AP Poll.

Or losing back to back games to Michigan State and Clemson only to lose his Heisman candidate quarter back the next off-season. He replaced that Heisman candidate with another one, J.T. Barrett.

Then his team lost to Virginia Tech in shocking fashion the following season behind a young O-line and a freshman quarterback. That team wouldn’t lose another game the rest of the season.

A season that included an injury to J.T. Barrett, the same person who replaced Braxton Miller at the start of the season.

Last season, Meyer, lost to Iowa in a similar fashion to what we saw last week against Purdue. The Buckeyes would finish the season off with wins over Michigan, Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship Game and USC in the Cotton Bowl.

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I brought up the Florida situation at the beginning of this article because it really spoke to my whole point of this article. That even after Urban Meyer went through so many trials and tribulations at Florida after having so much success, he was able to come to Ohio State and build a winning program out of a team that was experiencing troubles just as Florida was when Meyer left.

He was able to come to Ohio State and win 2 Big Ten Championships, and the first ever College Football Playoff.

At Florida, Urban Meyer’s teams were 65-15 overall winning 2 national titles. Since he left, they are 52-37, while never even winning an SEC title.

As much as Florida fans might hate to admit it, they wish he hadn’t left. And if for some reason Urban Meyer is chased out of Columbus, I fear that Buckeye fans will be wishing the same thing.

My message through this article is simple, stay optimistic about this football team. Urban Meyer is still one of the best football minds the game has ever seen. He has led this program out of adversity so many times before, and I see no reason to believe he can’t do it again.