The three most unheralded coaches in Ohio State Football history

Urban Meyer had just finished off an incredibly successful run with Florida. In fact, it was Meyer’s Florida team in 2006 that beat the heavily-favored Buckeyes in the National Championship Game. He took a year off of coaching before returning with the Ohio State football program.

After Luke Fickell was the interim coach for a year, the Buckeyes went and got Meyer in 2012. All he did was go undefeated in his first year. If Gene Smith wouldn’t have cooperated with the NCAA in the tattoo scandal, they would have played Notre Dame for the national title.

Meyer then went undefeated in the 2013 regular season only to fall to Michigan State in the Big Ten title game. No matter. The Buckeyes went on the most unlikely run to a national title that the sport has ever seen, winning with a third-string quarterback over Alabama and then Oregon.

Meyer went an astounding 83-9 in his run with the Buckeyes. The 2018 season was a rocky one after he lied about the Zach Smith situation and was suspended for the first three games of the year. He then medically retired because of a cyst issue in his brain.

Since then, it’s been nothing but a disaster for Meyer. He spent a couple of years with FOX before becoming the head coach of the Jaguars last season for just 13 games. He was fired after leading perhaps the most disastrous season in NFL history.

His NFL tenure and personal issues don’t take away the success he had on the field for the Buckeyes. He won a national title in Columbus and won a lot of games here. He also put numerous players into the NFL. The reason he’s unheralded is that these issues with the Jags cast a shadow over what he did with the Bucks.

Unfortunately, Meyer may have tarnished his college coaching legacy forever. Buckeye fans might pass him by when it comes to naming the greatest coaches in program history because they might not personally like him.

The last coach on this list is the one who started all of the Buckeye success though.