Urban Meyer Hired

His Background
Urban Frank Meyer III was born in 1964 in Toledo and moved to Ashtabula early in his childhood. He grew up in the old coal and steel port town in the northeast corner of the state. Although the city is close to the state boundary with Pennsylvania, it has many Ohio State fans and Meyer remarked at his press conference about growing up watching Ohio State and Woody Hayes. Meyer says that he has followed the buckeyes all his life, outside of the 60 minutes of the National Championship game involving Florida and Ohio State. He was successful in football and baseball in high school. He was drafted by the Atlanta Braves and played in the farm system for two years, before attending UC as an undergraduate student. After his graduation he attended Ohio State for his masters degree, where he was a grad assistant during Earle Bruce's last two years.
Assistant Coach
Instead of following Earle Bruce to Northern Iowa, Meyer joined Jim Heacock's staff at Illinois State where he coached linebackers and eventually the quarterbacks and receivers. In 1990 he finally coached again with Earle Bruce at Colorado St as the receivers coach. After Bruce left, Meyer remained with the team through the 1995 season. He joined another coaching legend in 1996 when he coached with Lou Holtz during his last year at Notre Dame. Like Colorado St., he remained on the staff after the coaching change to Bob Davie. He remained on the Notre Dame staff through 2000.
Head Coach
In 2001 he started his head coaching career at Bowling Green and in two years he had a record of 17-6, for a program that had struggled before his arrival. Utah was impressed with his effort and hired him in 2003. In his first year he took Utah to a bowl game and won, and during the second year his team was undefeated and won the Fiesta Bowl. He was 22-2 in two years at Utah. In 2005 he took the helm at Florida and immediately guided them to a 9-3 record and an Outback Bowl win. In his second year he had a 13-1 record and a BCS National Championship victory over Ohio State. In his remaining four years he lost his first bowl game, but also added another BCS National Championship and a victories in the Sugar and Outback Bowl. He had a record of 65-15 during his six years at Florida.

How Does Florida Feel?
Pat Forde wrote a scathing article about Urban Meyer and he questioned why Meyer would come back to coaching after one year in the ESPN booth. Forde isn't the first and will certainly not be the last person to question why Meyer left Florida. Some may question if Meyer left because he did not have Tebow or the offensive coordinator that he wanted, which could translate to a broken spread offense in the mind of Meyer. During his last year as a coach in 2010 at Florida he had an 8-5 record, which happens to be the most losses he has had in his ten years as a head coach. Before the 2010 season Meyer had retired due to a health scare, but returned within a day. Meyer made the retirement official after the 2010 season, stating the health concerns and the desire to spend time with his family. After the hiring at Ohio State, the Florida athletic director released a press release with kind words, but Florida fans may feel that Meyer was not genuine when providing reasons for his retirement. If the early bowl projections are correct, Ohio State will have the opportunity to match up against a potentially angry Florida team in the Gator Bowl on January 2.

His Staff
Luke Fickell
The Columbus Dispatch is reporting that Luke Fickell will remain on the staff as an assistant coach on defense under Urban Meyer. Meyer made numerous references to Fickell at the press conference and indicated that Fickell will be critical in evaluating the players on next year's team as well as the assistant coaches. Fickell may make the case for Mike Vrable to come back as the linebackers coach, but even Meyer acknowledged at the press conference that the linebacker position has some depth problems at the moment. It will seem strange to not see Jim Heacock on the sidelines. Heacock has been working with the OSU defense since 1996 and he was retained by Tressel when he took over. As stated above, Heacock was the first coach to hire Urban Meyer for an assistant coach position.
Stan Drayton
It seemed like an odd hire for Tressel when he hired Stan Drayton to coach the receivers, as most of his experience is coaching running backs. Drayton is from Cleveland and was a running back at Allegheny College. He has been an assistant at numerous schools including Mississippi St, Florida, and Tennessee. It has been reported by the Plain Dealer that Drayton will coach the running backs next year, which means that the Dick Tressel will be done at Ohio State after the bowl game.
Other Names
No other coordinator decisions have been confirmed by major news outlets, but other names mentioned include current OSU cornerbacks coach Taver Johnson, former Minnesota head coach Tim Brewster, and former Arizona head coach Mike Stoops. Although he shares the same home town with Urban Meyer, fellow Ashtabula native Jim Bollman will not likely be retained as the offensive coordinator. Meyer will bring in someone that understands his spread offense, and former BGSU offensive coordinator (under Meyer) and current LSU coordinator Greg Studrawa has been mentioned as a possible hire. Gene Smith has reversed his previous position, surprise surprise, and he is now willing to spend more money on assistant coaches. Despite Meyer's fondness for Earle Bruce, which goes back to Meyer's days at Ohio State and Colorado St., Bruce will not be on the sidelines as a coordinator. Bruce has had a presence in Ohio State athletics for years and his role and visibility will increase.