Ohio State football: The fall of Urban Meyer
By Ryan Stano
Former Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer is out of a job today. He only lasted 13 games as the coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars after signing a five-year contract. It was a complete failure of a season for one of the greatest college football coaches of all time.
The fall for Urban started when he was still head coach of the Ohio State football program. Before the 2018 season, there were reports that he knew that former wide receivers coach Zach Smith had abused his wife. He denied it, and then was suspended for three games because he lied about it.
That was just the first domino. Then Urban retired after health issues had become more prominent during the season. He took a couple of years off to be an analyst on FOX for their Big Noon Kickoff program. He seemed genuinely happy doing that and was great at it.
Then Jacksonville came calling and it went wrong almost from the start. He hired Chris Doyle as the strength and conditioning coach amid reports Doyle had used racist language towards players while he was at Iowa. He eventually had to fire Doyle before his work even began.
Then there was the infamous midseason video of him with a woman who wasn’t his wife at a bar during his bye week. Soon after, the players lost all respect for him and continued to play extremely poorly. The Jaguars only won two games under Urban’s watch.
Perhaps the final straw was the report that came out yesterday of Urban kicking one of his former players. That seemed to be what broke the camel’s back and forced Jacksonville to move on from him. It was a complete mess from start to finish and he kept making mistakes.
It’s extremely likely that Urban Meyer’s coaching career is over. He has too much stink on him from his time in Jacksonville to survive something like this. He likely wouldn’t be interested in a small college job, and no big-time program will go near him now.
Next. Kerry Coombs has lost recruiting touch. dark
Just be glad he left the Ohio State football program when he did. Otherwise, this disaster could have happened in Columbus.