Michigan doesn’t like OhioState much. That sentiment isn’t helped by the fact that Ohio has become the antithesis of everything Michigan football stands for. Fielding H. Yost was the first coach to ever espouse the opinion that football can develop character in young men, and he proved that to be the truth. Since then, many coaches have latched on to this ideal and have built their football programs around it. As it is for Ohio State, that is not always the case.
I’m sad to say that John Cooper was the last Ohio State Buckeye coach to have any sort of ethical standards. He accounted for a 111-43-4 record with Ohio and was fired after losing a bowl game in which the team MVP didn’t play because he missed a practice and the starting wide receiver was kicked off the team for poor grades. You know that stuff Brady Hoke was talking about during his introductory press conference… accountability? The day Ohio fired John Cooper is the day they decided that winning was the only thing that was important, regardless of how they got there.
Of course, how can we talk about the ethical integrity of the Buckeye football team without first discussing Jim Tressel? Well… Brian at mgoblog already did it form me. What this column doesn’t talk about is the violations Tressel had prior to coming to Ohio State. The Buckeye faithful shouldn’t be shocked to hear that Tressel is a slime ball considering he had major violations at Youngstown State, the school he coached at prior to taking the Ohio job. It also might not seam surprising that evidence of the same violations that occurred at Youngstown state were popping up in Columbus. Jim Tressel befriended a man named Michael Monus, CEO of Phar-Mor Inc. and head of the board of trustees. Youngstown State’s starting QB under Tressel also befriended Monus, to the tune of thousands of dollars in cash and even more in used cars. Later we saw the same types of behavior from Terrelle Pryor and many others.
So, let’s skip ahead to the new coach of the Ohio State football program. Urban Meyer brings a new brand of immorality to Columbus. Refreshing… isn’t it? Instead of handing out cars, cash, tattoos, phantom grades, and other free stuff, Coach Meyer is a more deceptive breed. He has worked within the system, finding every loop hole he can, to win at all costs. At Florida, Urban Meyer has had thirty of his players arrested, many of which were felonies. The important players almost always remained on the team and rarely lost any playing time at all.
Meyer punished players, not based on the crime, but based on how skilled of an athlete they were. For instance, Frankie Hammond Jr. was charged with a DUI which resulted in a suspension from all team activities and his scholarship was revoked. Contrast that with Carlos Dunlap, who was also charged with a DUI and was suspend for one game. Gary Brown was charged with battery and was dismissed from the team. Janoris Jenkins, on the other hand, was charged with battery and resisting arrest and received absolutely no punishment at all.
Urban Meyer also has questionable recruiting practices. While at Florida, Urban Meyer would do anything to get the players he wanted to Gainesville 
There is one reported instance of Meyer collaborating with UF’s gymnastics coach to get a prospect’s girlfriend, Maranda Smith, an athletic scholarship on the gymnastics team in hopes that it would compel Carl Moore, the player Meyer was targeting, to follow suite. Urban even went as far as to make multiple telephone calls with Maranda, acting as a gymnastics recruiting coach, despite the obvious NCAA violation. Maranda even testified that the phone calls were occurring when she stated, “He kept asking how Carl was doing and wanted me to come [to Gainesville] and do gymnastics," Smith said. "It was weird. But I really didn't know anything about college football anyway, so it was like I was talking to any other person. Then I started watching TV and I'd see him and I'd say, 'I just talked to him on the phone an hour ago.'” Both Moore and Smith ended up committing to Florida. Also, as it may not shock you, Urban Meyer was a huge player in Daryl Stonum’s recruitment. Stonum claims, “[Urban Meyer] told me that he talked to Coach Carr and Coach Soup and that they told him that I would be a much better fit in the Florida offense than I would be in the one at Michigan”. When Stonum confronted Coach Carr about it, Carr denied ever even speaking to Meyer at all. As we all know, Stonum ended up committing to Michigan. This begs the question though, if Urban Meyer was willing to blatantly lie to recruits about Michigan’s intentions while at Florida, how is he planning on deceiving recruits while at Ohio State?
Bret Bielema, a coach that I personally respect a great deal, clearly took issue with the recruiting practices of Urban Meyer as recently as this year. Coach Bielema said, “There are a few things that happened early on that I made people aware of that I didn’t want to see in this league, that I had seen take place in other leagues. Other recruiting tactics, other recruiting practices that are illegal.” Furthermore, Bret said, “I encourage [The Big 10] coaches to play by the books, to do things in a certain way. If you have to lie, cheat and steal to get someone here, it doesn’t make a great point once you get them here about how you need to handle them.” This is clearly a jab at how Urban Meyer recruits on a consistent basis. Uninformed fans of the Buckeyes will often claim that Bielema is just upset about losing his player to them, however I find that very hard to believe. Bret wasn’t talking about “a snake oil salesman” or some other arbitrary ad hominem attack against the opposing coach. He was talking about specific infractions that occurred and specific unethical practices regarding deceiving prospective recruits. He was even respectful enough not to name those infractions to the press because he wanted to take care of those issues on a personal, and not public, level.
Urban Meyer is currently displaying a sign in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center comparing Michigan academics with that of Ohio State. I’m sure most of you have heard about it one way or another. I’m only bringing it up because it is a gleaming example of the deceptive propaganda Urban Meyer uses on recruits.
Michigan is far superior to Ohio State in virtually every academic category based upon every impartial ranking service in existence. It has always been better and it will continue to be better. That being said, Urban Meyer’s poster claims that Ohio State is academically superior to Michigan based upon the majors the student athletes enroll in. First, how is that a basis for academic superiority? Deciding what your major will be is a personal decision that each student makes for themselves. It has absolutely nothing to do with the university. Secondly, the poster highlights that Michigan's football players tend to enroll in general studies. It also shows that Ohio State players tend to enroll in communications and family resource management. Is that somehow better? Does anybody actually know what family resource management is? Here’s what the sign doesn’t show.Last year Ohio State had two Academic All-Big 10 players in the engineering field, both were walk-ons, and one of them was kicked off of the team after being arrested for a DUI and disorderly conduct. Neither of them ever played a down of football. Michigan had eleven Academic All-Big 10 players while Ohio State had ten. Michigan, by all accounts, is a much more demanding school and provides its students with a much more valuable education. Every parent and student who sees that poster should take it as an insult to their own intelligence, that Urban Meyer has the audacity to try to compare that university with theUniversity of Michigan academically.