Meyer's Managerial Mistakes

By Kris Mead

Ohio State University football, under Urban Meyer, has been able to recruit a top ten, and even sometimes a top five, recruiting class year in and year out. So, it can be confidently stated that Ohio State is more talented than all the teams on their schedule.  The question then becomes, “how does a team, with such talent and pedigree, manage to lose, and lose badly, to a Purdue team who started the year 0-3?” The answer should be squarely pointed at the people on the field receiving paychecks – the coaches.

Urban Meyer, a coach who has had and continues to have significant success at every university for which he’s coached, has recently settled for complacency in the form of cronyism. When Ohio State won the national championship in 2014, and Meyer’s years at Ohio State prior to the national championship, Meyer had a coaching staff of excellent assistants, who had no connections to Meyer. For instance, Ohio State was led by offensive coordinator, Tom Herman. Herman not only coached three excellent quarterbacks for Ohio State – Miller, Barrett, and Jones – but he had to coach two significantly different quarterbacks in the run to the national championship. Luke Fickell also had no personal connection with Urban Meyer prior to being named the defensive coordinator. He too created a defense that was able to be ferocious and was the backbone of the Ohio State team. Kerry Coombs, the father of “DBU” (Defensive Back University), developed the likes of Marshon Lattimore, Gareon Conley and countless others. Then there was Chris Ash, an intellectual who created dominant safeties such as Malik Hooker. Of course, because these assistant coaches were so good, they were poached by other teams to become collegiate head coaches or assistant coaches in the NFL.

After watching Ohio State last night (10/20/18) it was pretty easy to figure out where the team has its largest issues. Granted, there were issues at every position.  The first issue is the offensive line. It is well documented that Isaiah Prince has regressed back to his 2016 tendencies – off sides and holding penalties, due to his failure to sufficiently guard the edge rush. The other problem is the fact that Michael Jordan, who was moved from guard to center this year after All-American center, Billy Price, was drafted by the Bengals, has struggled mightily at not only snapping the ball with velocity, but was out maneuvered by Purdue’s interior defensive line, which has been terrible the whole season.

The offensive line coach for the Buckeyes is Greg Studrawa.  Meyer hired Studrawa to replace Ed Warriner.  Warriner was an excellent offensive line coach (2012-2016) for the Buckeyes and had no connections to Meyer prior to being hired. Warriner took an offensive line that allowed four sacks per game in 2011 and, by the end of 2013, cut that down to 1.5 sacks per game. He was promoted to offensive coordinator, a position that was not a good fit for him and which caused him to be pushed out. In turn, Michigan hired him as their offensive line coach this year. Now Michigan’s offensive line looks much better than Ohio State’s. Studrawa, on the other hand, coached under Meyer at Bowling Green. Studrawa then coached for LSU as the offensive line coach and was let go after seven years of mediocracy. After LSU, Studrawa became Maryland’s offensive line coach for two years. Mentioning Maryland and football should be enough for anyone to realize that he stunk there too. However, Meyer decided to hire his friend in 2016. The line has deteriorated ever since, but at least Meyer retains his friend – Greg Studarawa.

The linebackers for Ohio State, which are usually a staple component of not only the defense, but the entire team, have been, at the very least, dismal. The linebackers seemed lost on several plays, at times taking bad angles on tackles and at other times they don’t fill gaps. This may be due to the scheme that they are playing on defense. Lately, it appears that Greg Schiano has been moving his linebackers to the line of scrimmage which, although it provides a defensive rush, does not allow the linebackers to “see the play” and fill the holes. Being practically placed at the line of scrimmage from the onset, the linebackers are already engaged in their pursuit and therefore cannot see how the play develops. This essentially creates a two layer defense. The first layer is comprised of the defensive line and now because the linebackers are committed at the line of scrimmage, the linebackers too. The second layer of the defense are the defensive backs, predominantly the safeties. The safeties also do not fill gaps and, for some reason, make instinctual mistakes. The instinctual mistakes made by the safeties in the run game are incredibly bad. In some instances, a play may be going to the right and yet the safeties initially start running to the left. However, if the linebackers stayed back and did not automatically line up at the line, big runs could be mitigated.

The coach of the Ohio State linebackers is named Billy Davis. Davis has coached the majority of his career, other than a stint at Michigan State in 1991 as a graduate assistant, in the NFL. His NFL resume is long and it is unclear why he made a move to coach at the collegiate level, rather than trying to remain in the NFL. Nick Saban and Chip Kelley also moved from the NFL back to the college level, but that was only after they were either fired or “significantly persuaded” to leave their NFL positions. It seems obvious that Davis was hired less for his resume but more for the fact that he was a teammate of Meyer’s at the University of Cincinnati.  In addition, Davis was Meyer’s best man in Meyer’s wedding. Further Wikipedia (I know isn’t “credible”) has stated that, “[i]n 2018, Davis’s linebackers at Ohio State consistently guess what hole to attack before they even read the play, get blocked and are unable to shed the block resulting in huge plays.” That quote encapsulates all that is wrong with Bill Davis’s coaching. The man should be fired for his blatant inability to develop the linebackers, adjust to the opposing offense, and the numbskull formations he uses to position his linebackers.

The other friend Meyer hired is Greg Schiano. However, I hesitate to criticize this hiring too much because, for the most part, OSU’s defense has been Ohio State’s most consistent facet. However, lately I question the secondary and, as stated earlier, the failure to adjust properly to opposing team’s offensives. This happened routinely against Minnesota two weeks ago. Minnesota consistently ran “read-option inside slant routes.” The slot receiver would run out, run freely I might add, and then commit to an inside slant. The safety in charge of covering this slot receiver would be initially ten to twelve yards away from the receiver. By the time the safety commits to covering the slot receiver, he is caught flat footed and fails to cover the slot receiver as he makes his inside cut. In turn, there was no adjustment to this issue. No linebacker was moved over to cover up the slot receiver at the line of scrimmage, nor was a safety initially lined up five yards away. The failure to adjust was mind boggling. This same failure to adjust occurred in the Purdue debacle in which Purdue’s, not only best receiver, but best player in Rondale Moore, was given a ten yard cushion almost routinely.  It seemed as though Buckeyes had no answer to Moore’s crossing routes. The entire game it was obvious to everyone that Moore was Purdue’s quarterback’s first receiving option – everyone, except for Ohio State. In other words, I have never seen a more inferior and unintelligent Buckeye secondary than the one that played against Purdue. It was an utter embarrassment to even try to believe that these players were four or five star recruits out of high school.

The reason why this lack of secondary play may come for three reasons, two of the reasons are squarely due to failure to hire adequate coaches. The first reason is that there is a chance that Ohio State’s corners and safeties are not at the same level that Ohio State has previously been spoiled with in the likes of Marshon Lattimore and Denzel Ward. The other issue is that the dean of “Defensive Backs University” left for the Tennessee Titans just after last year, in Kerry Coombs. It should be noted that Coombs was hired by Meyer in 2012 and had no previous connections to Meyer. Coombs was simply the most skilled coach at his position. In turn, Meyer replaced Coombs with a Jim Tressel cornerbacks coach in Taver Johnson. Now Johnson was not a bad hire, but it becomes obvious that Meyer most likely did not do a thorough hiring search and hired Johnson out of convenience rather than based on skill. The second issue is the fact that Meyer previously hired Chris Ash to coach the safeties. Ash left to become the head coach of Rutgers (that’s going fabulously … not) and Schiano has taken over for coaching the safeties. This is concerning, especially this year, because the safeties are playing poorly for the reasons mentioned previously, and the defense, as a whole, is playing like a dumpster fire. Schiano needs to focus on the entire defense and Meyer should hire a specific position coach for the safeties.

There are five decent coaches. These coaches are Brian Hartline, Ryan Day, Alex Grinch, Kevin Wilson and Larry Johnson. Johnson is the best of these assistant coaches and only assistant coach from the 2014 National Championship staff. His defensive line may be the strongest unit on the defensive side of the ball, even without Nick Bosa. Ryan Day was excellent as an interim head coach, although TCU was the only competitive team for him to coach against in those three games. However, Day was a graduate assistant under Meyer at Florida. Brian Hartline, also a graduate assistant under Meyer this year, was recently promoted due to Meyer’s close friend, Zach Smith, having to be fired from Ohio State because he could not keep his hands off his wife.  Kevin Wilson and Alex Grinch were both best available hires and so Meyer should be given credit. The issue, though, for Wilson is the fact that his offense is always stalled because Studrawa’s line is so anemic and lacks any sort of motivation to be good. Grinch was a talented hire from Washington State, where he was the defensive coordinator, and this hire was smart because it was assumed that Schiano was going to be hired by the University of Tennessee, but that went awry. So Ohio State has settled with having co-coordinators at both the offense and defensive coordinator positions. I have to believe that Kevin Wilson has authority over Ryan Day at offensive play calling, and Schiano has authority over Grinch at defensive play calling. But frankly, with Meyer’s managerial skills, he probably chooses not to instruct who the “lead co-coordinator” is. It should be noted that in the past Meyer has routinely had co-coordinators at Ohio State. However, Chris Ash was hired to coach safeties and Wilson was hired after Warriner was quickly sent packing.

In a nutshell, the issue with Ohio State, and this goes for the entire university, is this constant climate of complacency. It starts with Meyer who has become complacent in choosing to hire folks he knows, rather than the best suited coaches available for the job. In the least case scenario, this complacency has caused Ohio State to be embarrassed on national television against a Purdue team that lacks any NFL talent. In the worst-case scenario, Meyer’s hiring complacency has caused him to nearly lose his job – failing to report his friend Zach Smith for beating his wife.  The other complacency that follows is the fact that Meyer is complacent in not holding his coaches accountable. If Meyer couldn’t fire Zach Smith until his domestic violence was aired to the world, why would any OSU fan assume he would even consider scolding his assistant coaches, who are also his friends, for coaching so poorly? The answer is, he won’t.

Meyer is losing control of this talented team. He has done this under his own making in a failure to hire responsibly. Meyer has chosen convenience over vetted candidates and has chosen friends over qualified candidates. These friends coach under no fear of losing their jobs because Meyer, most likely, is too scared to reprimand their inability to coach. Players have chosen complacency for the simple fact that their coaches have committed to complacency – complacency in strategy, matchups, and play calling. Ohio State lost the Purdue  game the moment their most talented player, quarterback Dwayne Haskins, gave Meyer “bunny ears” during Meyer’s national pregame sideline interview. That indicated that the coaches did not emphasize improvement to the players and continued to preach the mantra that, “we keep winning, therefore everything is fine. If everything is fine, we don’t need to change a thing.”

The Zach Smith episode was thought to be a benign cancer in Ohio State’s locker room. However, after last night’s embarrassment, coupled with Ohio State’s troubled victories against inferior opponents, has revealed that the cancer may be much worse. Meyer has evaded the sickness once, but he should remove the tumors now before the disease becomes malignant and the entire team infected.