Four and a half years ago, as Urban Meyer was contemplating a move to Ohio State, he heard lots of chatter about how big he could win there. If Meyer could rebuild in Columbus as he had in each of his previous career stops, the thinking went, the Buckeyes soon would own the Big Ten. That was partly about Meyer’s near-peerless ability as a head coach, and partly, as Meyer recalls now, about the sagging reputation of the Big Ten. The overall talent level seemingly had dropped. The overall coaching level was questionable, too. Oh, how things have changed. Ohio State is 50-4 under Meyer and has become, as new Rutgers coach Chris Ash put it this week, the Cadillac of college football.” [embedded content] Yet the Big Ten on the whole entered its spring football season with extraordinary momentum. In two years of the College Football Playoff, the league has produced one national champion (Ohio State) and one semifinalist (Michigan State). Mark Dantonio’s Spartans are a blistering 36-5 over the last three seasons. Iowa is coming off an eye-opening 12-win campaign that reached the Rose Bowl. Northwestern, Wisconsin and Michigan rounded out the league’s hefty total of six teams with double-digit victories last season…
Continue Reading: B1G spring football: Better coaches, better players, better teams
