Around the 'Shoe

There’s a lot of love going around for Urban Meyer and I get it. I get a “Woody” thinking about it, too. He grew up in Ohio, played for UC, coached at OSU, even got his master’s at OSU, so he’s an alum. But Urban’s “retired” twice already due to (allegedly) “health and family” reasons. His daughters play college volleyball, which is a winter sport, at Georgia Tech and Florida Gulf Coast College. If he wants to spend more time with his family, as he’s twice claimed, coaching football at Ohio State becomes antithetical to accomplishing that. He might also lose a lot of credibility with recruits and their parents who would be understandably wary he might do it again. As the saying goes, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me…but how does it go when it happens a third time? For the sake of his health, his family and his reputation, I just don’t see it happening.

So that moves us onto my personal #1 choice, Jon Gruden. Much ado has been made about him winning a Super Bowl with Tony Dungy's players. But Tressel won a national championship with mainly Cooper's players, Meyer with Ron Zook’s players, Larry Coker with Butch Davis’ players, Bob Stoops with John Blake’s players, etc., etc. etc. So let's be fair. That kind of petty, penny ante nit-picking can go on forever.

Let’s start by going back to 2002: Bill Parcells was rumored to have agreed to be Tampa Bay's HC but after a long, drawn out, drama-filled courtship, he backed out over concerns the team's salary cap would keep the team from keeping and signing future free agents. The Parcells disaster caused TB management a great deal of embarrassment and they still needed a coach. They went after Gruden, who had worn out his welcome with Oakland’s mercurial owner Al Davis but still had one more year on his contract. The Bucs wanted Gruden more than Davis needed to give him up. In order to get Gruden, TB gave Oakland its 1st and 2nd round picks in the upcoming 2002 draft, its 2003 1st round pick and its 2004 2nd round pick plus $8 million in cash, young talent and money that Gruden didn't have access to in order to bring in his own players. So he came onboard under very difficult circumstances. The salary cap issue that Parcells feared reared its ugly head in subsequent years and the quality of talent in TB steadily declined; ironically, this was indirectly Gruden’s fault because TB gave up so much to get him in first place. After winning the Super Bowl, Gruden publicly thanked Dungy for assembling the roster he had taken over, especially the defense. That tells me he's gracious and fair; it also gives me hope he would recognize and appreciate the difficult circumstances Luke Fickell has had to deal with having had to weather similar storms and controversy himself and thus might be willing to keep Fick on as DC.

By Gruden's own admission, he is not a defensive-minded coach. That’s OK: we have a proven defensive staff already in place. Gruden played QB in college (first at Muskingum and then Dayton, where he played for the legendary Mike Kelly, who was 246–54–1 in 27 seasons) and as an assistant, he has only coached offense. His coaching tree is without peer: he played for Kelly at UD; offensive GA for OC Walt Harris and HC Johnny Majors at Tennessee; WR coach for Harris when he became the HC at Pacific; offensive QC coach for Mike Holmgren at SF and WR coach for Holmgren at Green Bay; WR coach for Paul Hackett at Pitt; OC for Ray Rhodes at Philadelphia; HC at Oakland and Tampa Bay. He was 16-16 at Oakland his first two seasons, 24-12 after that. In 2000 and 2001, the Raiders lost in the playoffs to the eventual SB champions. The Steelers’ Mike Tomlin and Buccaneers’ Raheem Morris both coached under him at Tampa Bay. His brother, Jay, was an assistant under Jon at TB from 2002-2008 and is currently the OC for the Bengals.

It’s been suggested Gruden doesn’t want to coach until after his son, Deuce, who is a senior QB for a private HS in Florida, graduates. If those rumors are true, that means his mind might be open to coaching again next year. Yes, he was an NFL coach from 1990-2008 but he has coached college. He’s got the kind of pedigree recruits are going to love. And the energy to inspire staff, players, fans and recruits and their parents. He’s already a household name in FLA but imagine dropping Tomlin’s name with prospects in western PA.

So here’s where I am: Luke Fickell has not succeeded. Yes, he was dealt a tough hand but he took it. No one put a gun to his head. But he was a good and loyal soldier who stepped up when his alma mater and employer needed him in a moment of crisis and while he isn’t likely to be rewarded for not succeeding even though the deck was stacked against him, I also hope that he won’t be penalized for it, either. So whoever Smith hires as the new HC will need a DC. Why not Luke, who knows the school, the players and has proven his loyalty? If Luke looks at his options, the best he can hope for is DC somewhere else, which is a lateral move at best, or as a position coach, which is a step down.

True, Gruden’s not an OSU grad and never coached there and has no direct ties to the school. So what? Neither did Nick Saban play or coach at Michigan State, LSU or Alabama or Urban Meyer at Florida or Les Miles at LSU or Bob Stoops at Oklahoma—all four of them Ohio boys, BW—prior to becoming the head coaches at those schools. If that’s what it takes, why didn’t Saban jump all over the job at his alma mater, Kent State, instead of only giving the Flashes a share of the gate for being the Tide’s whipping boys in the first game of the season, or why didn’t Miles take the Michigan (both times)?

More than likely, Ohio State’s got feelers out, stuff being discussed off the record. OSU doesn’t want to be embarrassed and neither do these coaches. I could see Earle and Cooper acting as Smith’s covert emissaries, i.e., OSU’s “Deep Throats.”

In the end, the day after the Michigan game (the outcome irrelevant because what matters is it’s obvious that despite how much we’re all rooting for him, Fickell isn’t the long-term answer), Smith hires Gruden, who hires Walt Harris—who left Columbus at 49 but is now 64 and the OC at California (PA), which is #16 in D-III, and someone Gruden’s likely to trust—as his Director of Football Operations. In corporate parlance, he would be COO to Gruden’s CEO. He was John Cooper’s OC/QB coach from 1995-96 when OSU went 22-3 and won the Rose Bowl against Arizona State. Bobby Hoying and Joe Germaine were his QBs those two seasons. Bill Callahan and Rich Rodriguez pissed off Nebraska and Michigan’s fans because they didn’t understand the traditions and culture. Harris will be familiar with Ohio HS football, knows Columbus and “gets” Ohio State. Mike Vrabel and Luke Fickell were also on the 1995-96 teams, so Harris is familiar with them, too. They will also help Gruden from pulling a DickRod and ticking off the faithful.

If the Bengals flounder and fire Marvin Lewis after this season, Jay Gruden’s going to be looking for a new job. Regardless, Jon hires Jay as OC, and keeps Fickell as Asst HC/DC. The whole defensive staff stays on, as does Stan Drayton, who walked into a mess but knows Florida and can be Gruden’s running back coach/recruiting coordinator, which is what he was under Meyer. Just imagine the Gruden boys, Harris & Co. burning the midnight oil watching tape and putting together an offensive game plan while down the hall, Fickell, Vrabel, Heacock & Co. are doing the same thing for the defense.

The only real question—once we get past Gruden’s personal reasons—is can we afford him? Back in 2002, Tampa Bay, in addition to the draft picks and cash they gave to Oakland, gave him a contract worth $17.25 million over five years. That’s the going rate for a proven NFL-caliber coach. It’s also an awful lot of negligees Les Wexner would have to sell (which also gives me a Woody just thinking about it). But just like lingerie, where the more you pay the less you get, hiring Gruden would produce immediate dividends and results. If that’s what it takes, I’m willing to pitch in and buy a few for my wife this Christmas to help Les make ends meet.

I apologize for the drawn out rationale. Thanks for listening. If you reply, please spare everyone the pain of having to re-read my entire sermon and just copy and paste the parts you want to comment on.