Urban Meyer And The Business Of College Football By @BuckeyeBlogger ALL NEWS, FEATURED POST, MIZZOU, NCAA, OHIO STATE Discuss (0) I turned on ESPN to watch Urban Meyer’s press conference during the B1G Conference Media Day in Chicago. At the same time, the SportsCenter side scroll is telling me Bill Belichick will address the media regarding the Aaron Hernandez situation. As if this was not enough, the Mothership had live coverage of the Hernandez probable cause hearing immediately following Belichick. Today had to be a sports talk show host’s dream… Or a nightmare for those answering questions about rouge players and program discipline. Urban Meyer and The Ohio State University have more in common than an employer and employee relationship. Both are polarizing figures. You either love them or you hate them. There is little room for middle ground. One could say the two are a perfect match. Ohio State is the Big Boy football program with the king size bullseye on its back. Huge stadium. Crazy fan base. National recruiting power. Perennial National Championship contender. Urban Meyer is the coach that fans (other than those whose team he is coaching) love to hate. Program builder. Righteous leader. Intense motivator. Perennial National Championship winner. But, for every accolade some may speak about these two, the naysayers will throw back words like Cheater, Probation, and Quitter. The unfortunate thing is this: both sides are right. Meyer assumed control of an Ohio State program that was reeling following the suspension of players and the dismissal of head coach Jim Tressel in the wake of a cash-for-memorabilia scandal that became a media sensation. Tressel was extremely successful as head coach at Ohio State, leading the Buckeyes to a National Championship in 2001 and five consecutive B1G Conference titles. Some speculate that these championships were won on the backs of players receiving improper benefits. Tressel’s issues with the NCAA date back to his tenure at Youngstown State University, when the school was sanctioned for infractions involving star quarterback Ray Issacs. Meyer, who spoke openly and often about mistakes he made during his time at Florida, was brought in to clean up the mess left by Tressel, both on and off the field. Tressel’s conservative style of coaching could not be in greater contrast to that of the wide-open spread offense that is the trademark of Meyer’s teams. However, the one thing the two definitely have in common is the will to win. The question is: Did Meyer’s and Tressel’s focus on winning blind them to the carnage left in its wake? I always enjoy when university presidents and athletic directors of Division I football programs refer to the players as “Student-Athletes.” They are amateurs. They play sports, but that is secondary to the work they do in the classroom. (Sarcasm font). One needs only to look at the situation involving Ohio State and the suspended players for the 2011 season. The NCAA violations were discovered in December of 2010 prior to the Buckeyes BCS matchup with the SEC’s Arkansas Razorbacks in the Sugar Bowl. In their infinite wisdom, the NCAA deemed it best for the guilty players to begin serving their suspensions AFTER the Sugar Bowl was played in January. For anyone who believes money was not the main reason for that decision, I own a time-share in Arizona with beach access and a boat dock. We’ll talk later. Of all its member schools, the NCAA has one division, the FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision), in one sport (Football) that does not have a game or tournament to decide its national champion. For some odd reason, the student-athletes that compete in football’s Division II and Division III have no issues competing in a month-long tournament to determine their national champions. The FBS member schools cannot do this because it would keep their student-athletes away from their studies for a prolonged period of time. Read this as: The member schools haven’t figured out a way to make more money on a football tournament than they do with the current bowl system. There has been progress in recent years with the addition of a fifth BCS game, and the four team College Football Playoff in 2015. Football at the major college level is a billion dollar business. If we were to break Big Boy football schools down and view them like a business model, it would be like this: University Presidents are the Chief Executive Officers. Athletic Directors are Chief Financial Officers. The Head Coaches are Chief Operating Officers with a focus on production. In order to maintain his position of power and prominence, the COO has to produce victories for his university. These victories are manufactured by the assets he has available to him on the production floor. The CFO has given full support to the COO in his efforts to upgrade the company’s assets. Some of these assets come with concerns that would normally cause the company to look for another candidate, but their skill sets are unique and will definitely be snatched up by the competitor if not employed in-house. The COO has to meet his quota. The shareholders will not be pleased with another quarterly report that falls short of expectations. The COO has a dilemma: Take on high-producing assets with questionable characteristics or stock the workforce with conservative assets with mediocre yield? I said the same thing about Tressel during the height of the OSU scandal as I do now about Meyer in the midst of the Aaron Hernandez fallout. It is easy to sit in judgment after the facts are clear and the results are obvious. It is much more difficult to make those decisions in the moment when the pressure is coming from all directions. Football coaches are compensated extremely well for their role at the university, and they are paid that way to produce under pressure. My question to you is this: If you were given a pen by the university president, would you use it to sign the best recruits possible or the application for your next job? Not so easy… Is it? ***This was written by the son of a former Mount Union team-mate of mine!!!
Posted on: Mon, 29 Jul 2013 17:49:27 +0000
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