Jim Naveau: Meyer to OSU foes: Commit this

COLUMBUS — The charm, the forceful personality and the energy that Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer used to assemble an outstanding recruiting class in a short time were no surprise to William White.

He saw it all when Meyer was a graduate assistant at OSU when the former Lima Senior standout played for the Buckeyes from 1984-87.

“He was really cool,” White said. “He was the youngest coach. When I went through there, Earle Bruce and the other coaches were older.”

Meyer was a graduate assistant at Ohio State in the 1986 and 1987 seasons and worked mostly with tight ends and wide receivers.

That meant he and White’s good friend Cris Carter spent a lot of time around each other.

“He and Cris got along really well,” White said. “He tells you you’re going to be champions and he has the proof.”

After Ohio State signed 25 recruits this past Wednesday, including several athletes who changed their commitments to OSU late in the recruiting process, two Big Ten football coaches weren’t getting along too well with Meyer. And they certainly weren’t saying he was really cool.

Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio and Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema were upset that Meyer recruited two players who had earlier verbally committed to them.

Canton McKinley defensive lineman Se’Von Pittman had been a long-time verbal commitment to MSU before signing with OSU, and Cleveland Heights offensive lineman Kyle Dodson retreated from a commitment to Wisconsin to become a Buckeye.

One of Dantonio’s assistant coaches, Pat Narduzzi, used the phrase “gentleman’s agreement” to describe how former Ohio State coach Jim Tressel and Dantonio regarded each other’s recruits as off limits.

“It sets a tone and starts a recruiting rivalry,” Narduzzi told the Canton Repository when asked about Meyer’s approach. “I guess it’s fair game. You don’t want to be that way, but that’s how it is. Our philosophy is to take our time and recruit the right way.”

Dantonio and Bielema seemed to be implying Meyer is bringing borderline unethical Southeastern Conference recruiting tactics into the Big Ten.

And, as we all know, the Big Ten has always been a shining city on a hill where legendary coaches never get fired for lapses in ethics or judgment.

Meyer brushed aside the criticism on national signing day Wednesday when he said OSU only pursued athletes who had verbally committed to other schools if they expressed an interest in Ohio State.

Even if Ohio State was more aggressive than that, the idea that OSU and the other Big Ten schools never pursued someone else’s recruits doesn’t hold up. You don’t have to go any further than Ohio State to see that.

Back in the 1990s during John Cooper’s regime when Ohio State realized what a massive mistake it had made by not recruiting Ben Roethlisberger, it made a late effort to get him to go back on his longstanding verbal commitment to Miami of Ohio.

And just a few years ago, when Jim Tressel found himself short on quarterbacks in his recruiting class, the Buckeyes made a late pitch to Kettering Alter QB Austin Boucher, who decided to stick with his original commitment to Miami also.

Meyer talked about how important recruiting is to him on signing day. If you can’t recruit, you can’t coach for him, he said.

“You can’t be an average recruiter and survive in the Ohio States of the world,” he said.

Then on Friday when he spoke at the Ohio High School Football Coaches Association clinic, he said that if other coaches were upset about OSU recruiting verbally committed players, they should know he wanted his nine assistants to be even more aggressive next year.

It sounds like it’s going to be very interesting with Meyer running things.