Urban Meyer Is the Best Coach In College Football

Published Jan. 13, 2015 2:26 a.m. ET

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It pains me to say this, but Urban Meyer is the best coach in college football. 

He won a national title in his second year at Florida and in his third year at Ohio State. Oh, and in his second year at Utah he also had them undefeated. There are probably 45 teams in FBS football where Urban Meyer would make the playoff. He's just that good. In college football today all that matters is your coach. If you have the right coach you win big, if you have the wrong coach, you get crushed. That's it.

I don't particularly like Urban Meyer because he's so hypocritical in many of his statements. Seriously, how can you say you only recruit the top 1% of the 1% at Florida and have the arrest record you had there? It's just laughable. 

But in the ultimate bottom line business of college football, where all that matters is winning football games, Urban Meyer is the best in the land. The Big Ten is still a shadow of the SEC, but Urban Meyer has built Ohio State into an SEC team above the Mason-Dixon line. In so doing, he's become the best coach in college football.

Yes, Alabama fans, he's even better than Nick Saban. Especially when you consider that Meyer's 13 years younger than Saban. The biggest threat to Meyer's dominance isn't Saban, it's his own health. Will he burn himself out at Ohio State like he did at Florida? Meyer says he's a changed man, but he sure doesn't seem very different than when he was dominating at Florida. Meyer's competitive fire burns so brightly that eventually it devours him. He can't escape, can't dial it back.  

Let me forestall the Alabama emails now, I know Saban crushed Meyer's Alabama teams the final two times they played in the SEC and I know that Saban still has one more national title, but Meyer beat Saban's Alabama team this year with a team that isn't as good as Bama's. I actually think -- and this is evidently an incredibly shocking opinion despite the fact that Las Vegas would agree with me -- that if Alabama and Ohio State played again next weekend Alabama would win. But Bama didn't win when they played in the Sugar Bowl and that puts Urban over the top.

Tonight's domination of Oregon erased all doubt. Meyer's now 142-26 in his coaching career which seems like an impossible record to pull off. Sure, he's padding those stats with a bunch of those wins in the Big Ten, but it's still an impressive run. And there was nothing fake about the last three wins, all as underdogs, against Wisconsin, Alabama, and Oregon with a third string quarterback in Cardale Jones. How is that Ohio State had three quarterbacks this good? Hell, the Arizona Cardinals would like to figure that out right now. As good as JT Barrett was, Ohio State is better with Cardale Jones right now than they were earlier in the season. 

After Meyer's Buckeyes lost to Virginia Tech by 14 points back in early September I said the Big Ten was done in the playoff. Ohio State fans love to Tweet me that comment now, but the fact is 99.9% of them agreed with me on that September night. If I'd Tweeted, "Guys, Ohio State won't lose again this season, will make the playoff, and will win the title," I would have set an all-time record for the number of people who would have told me to suck a dick. (In case you don't realize I'm the Michael Phelps of being told to suck a dick on Twitter, the all-time Olympic medal holder.). I didn't think Ohio State was very good. And they weren't. But what I didn't do was give Urban Meyer enough credit. I'll admit it, I thought Meyer had lost his fast ball, that he was eternally the coach who would be sitting on the golf cart eating cold pizza after difficult defeats. That he ran off to the Big Ten because Nick Saban made him quit the SEC.

But somewhere along the way Meyer revitalized himself. And during his urban renaissance he did something I never though he'd do again, he did a better job coaching Ohio State to a title this year than he did coaching the Florida Gators to the title in 2006. You remember that 2006 title run, right? When Urban Meyer, the spread option coach, won a national title with CHRIS LEAK AT QUARTERBACK. I still can't believe this happened. It was an incredible coaching job, the best of his career up until this season. Meyer expertly worked Tim Tebow into the offense, won close game after close game in a brutally competitive SEC, and then crushed Ohio State in the BCS title game. It was the win that launched the SEC's streak of dominance. Two years later Meyer won another title with Tim Tebow, but then in 2009 Saban's Alabama team upset Meyer's Gator team in the SEC title game and the wheels rapidly came off. So high were the expectations in Gainesville that even a 13-1 Gator team felt like a tremendous disappointment. Saban sent Urban Meyer to the hospital and Meyer went 8-5 in 2010, the worst year of his coaching career. Meyer moved to ESPN where he became a sanctimonious hypocrite, a guy who had coached a great deal of felons made a living deriding the direction the sport had taken. 

That's why I've always liked Nick Saban more than Urban Meyer. Saban's an ass who is obsessed with football, but he never spends any time trying to convince you he's something other than what he is. Meyer's the opposite. It's not enough that he wins, Meyer has to make you feel like he's doing it the right way. The reality is, Meyer's doing whatever it takes to win, just like Saban. These guys are two sides of the same coin, and right now Meyer's coin is facing up.

So enjoy it Ohio State fans, you have the best coach in college football and he just produced the greatest coaching job of his career. It's been one hell of a season that no one would have believed was possible back on September 6th. 

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Now enjoy this video of me proclaiming the SEC the best in the land during earlier weeks this season. It's pretty fantastic.      

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