COLUMBUS, Ohio — The latest rival needed no introduction. Urban Meyer didn’t need a history lesson when he arrived at his fourth coaching stop. He grew up around The Ten Year War.
The importance of The Game above all else wasn’t news to somebody who drove around campus as a graduate assistant at Ohio State taking notice of the massive signs hanging from dorm-room windows artfully expressing distaste for its hated neighbor to the north.
+ EnlargeJamie Sabau/Getty ImagesUrban Meyer and Ohio State have turned up the intensity this week and are focused only on “that team up north.”And with a staff almost entirely comprised of fellow Ohio natives, Meyer hasn’t had to take some of the same steps to indoctrinate his assistants in the traditions of arguably the most storied feud in all of sports that he might have elsewhere. The bad blood in the latest feud in Meyer’s coaching career might have started boiling a bit easier than it did at Utah or Florida. But once he’s got up to speed, familiarity quickly breeding the contempt needed to hunt the biggest target at whatever program he was leading, Meyer has treated them all the same no matter where he’s been.
BYU and Florida State have had their turns. Now Michigan is locked in the laser sights that Meyer saves for a rival, which hasn’t traditionally been a comfortable place to be.
“Do we make a big deal out of this game? Absolutely,” Meyer said. “Do we make a huge deal over the top about rivalry games? Yes, we do.
“That’s the way I was brought up. We kind of go over the top here, and we always have.”
That has historically brought results that ensure bragging rights and keep his fan base happy, and there have been few seasons where Meyer’s intense focus on a rival has left him disappointed.
He dropped a game at Toledo during his last year with Bowling Green. Florida State got the best of him during his final campaign at Florida, and he also came up short once against Georgia in another series of importance for the Gators.
But even throwing in secondary rivals like Utah State with the Utes or Tennessee for the Gators, those are the only losses in Meyer’s career against teams that help label a season a success or failure, collectively giving him a 21-3 mark in matchups where the records are proverbially supposed to be thrown out.
“You can tell he’s a little bit different because this is a rivalry week,” linebacker Ryan Shazier said. “You can’t act the same as you act every week. …
Continue reading this article at ESPN: Meyer’s rivalry approach is ‘over the top’
