COLUMBUS: When the word came on Dec. 20, it could have staggered new Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer.
He was already scrambling, on the job just over three weeks and recruiting under the cloud of NCAA scandal. Then came the sanctions, which included a one-year bowl ban Meyer described as “a shock.”
“When I was hired we went out and recruited as hard as we can with the belief that we would not get a bowl ban,” Meyer said. “When that hit, it was damage control for two to three weeks. Everyone was taken aback. That was a little bit of a sucker punch for a little bit.”
In the wake of that blow, Meyer proved he could adapt, think fast on his feet and, above all, counter-punch.
On signing day Wednesday, Ohio State announced a 25-man class of 2012 that was ranked No. 3 by Rivals.com and Scout.com and No. 6 by ESPN. Meyer said the roster stands at 81, one below the NCAA’s Aug. 1 limit, with OSU losing three scholarships for three consecutive years.
“I keep hearing top five, top three, top two, that doesn’t mean a whole lot to me personally,” Meyer said of the class ranking. “At the end of the day, it’s what happens two to three years from now.”
Asked later how it felt to hit a home run, Meyer said, “I don’t want to give the opinion … It is not a home run. I signed a class [at Florida] one time that I heard a reporter say was the greatest class in history of high school football. Some aren’t there any more. You just don’t know.”
Sixteen of the 25 signees are Ohioans. Eight switched to Ohio State after orally committing elsewhere.
The number of those who flipped might have been smaller if Meyer had not come out in honey badger mode after the bowl ban was announced. He told his assistant coaches to attack the news aggressively as soon as they walked in a recruit’s front door.
“I instructed the staff, ‘Hit that as hard as you possibly can on the front end. Don’t wait for them to attack you with it because your competitors are all over that.’ We went at it extremely proactive,” Meyer said Wednesday during a news conference at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.
Meyer said he hadn’t heard the bowl ban mentioned in the past two weeks. Tight ends/fullbacks coach Tim Hinton, who went to work on Jan. 2, said he never fielded a question about it from a coach or a recruit.
Defensive coordinator/linebackers coach Luke Fickell was the man who was forced to wear the scandal and the pending sanctions like a noose. He spent last season as Ohio State’s interim coach after Jim Tressel was asked to resign on Memorial Day.
Fickell embraced Meyer’s approach to get in front of the ugliness as Ohio State’s foes tried to continue the muckraking.
“Honesty is always going to win out in the long run,” Fickell said Wednesday. “[The ban] was a shock to all of us, to be honest. To be out front, to try to get hold of it as soon as possible, we’d already built that relationship. They had enough confidence that they knew who we were and they were really interested in seeing how honest you were with them and you didn’t try to sugar-coat it or beat around the bush. I think it paid off in the long run.
“For young guys, it’s a one-year thing. They’ve got a lot of things to come. As long as you stay strong and stand up, that one year is not what’s going to make you here at Ohio State.”
The ban will rob the 2012 class of valuable bowl practices, when youngsters have made their mark in the past.
That did not deter four defensive linemen considered five- or four-star recruits, which included Se’Von Pittman of Canton McKinley. Meyer called the four “the prize of the recruiting class. Guys you’d take anywhere in the country with you at any time.”
That did not deter five linebackers, including Jamal Marcus of Durham, N.C., whose YouTube highlight video was described by Meyer as “bordering on ridiculous as far as ability level.”
That did not deter two of the country’s best offensive tackles, Taylor Decker of Vandalia Butler and Kyle Dodson of Cleveland Heights. Decker was headed for Notre Dame until the two coaches recruiting him, Hinton and Ed Warriner, left the Irish for the Buckeyes. Dodson, whom Meyer called “the cherry on top,” had orally committed to Wisconsin.
“Where we are at offensive tackle, depth and sheer numbers, I’d almost trade him for any other player we signed,” Meyer said of Dodson. “Those two offensive tackles, three weeks ago it didn’t look like we were even in the running.”
Swooping in on players committed elsewhere won’t go over well with spurned coaches like Wisconsin’s Bret Bielema. But Meyer insisted that when he contacted such recruits, if they responded that they weren’t interested in Ohio State, he backed off. He said Decker and Decker’s high school coach called him.
As he launches his plan to capture a BCS title or two, Meyer didn’t seem worried about making friends. Eventually he and his Buckeyes will have to step on their throats, anyway.
During his first signing day press conference at Ohio State, Meyer didn’t raise his voice or pound the podium. He actually spoke somewhat dispassionately.
But there was no mistaking an underlying tone of aggression. From the day he learned of the bowl ban, Meyer decided to go for the jugular.
Marla Ridenour can be reached at mridenour@thebeaconjournal.com. Read her blog at http://marla.ohio.com/. Follow her on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/MarlaRidenour. Follow ABJ sports on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/sports.abj.
