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Winning a national championship in back-to-back seasons is tough, just ask Urban Meyer.
The former Florida and Ohio State head coach fell short in all three of his title defenses, failing to make it back to the national championship game each time.
As Ohio State begins its quest to repeat, Meyer is urging those around Ryan Day’s program to avoid the pitfalls that tripped up his own teams.
“Everybody changes,” Meyer said on “The Joel Klatt Show.” “Everybody wants to point the finger at the players. I didn’t. The administration is different. Your fans are different. Your donors are different. Your coaching staff is different. Everybody walks around like something’s changed. We’re a blue-collar team. We’re blue-collar people. We work our ass off, and now we have the answers.
“I used to say that all the time, ‘I get it now, so we have all the answers because we want it.’ Do you realize we’re now going to be the target of every team in the country? I would always try to push it down, and it’s hard to do because everybody changes.”
Meyer’s first run at a title defense came in 2007, seeking to lead Florida to back-to-back titles after winning it all in 2006. He admitted that his 2007 team wasn’t “ready for primetime,” but it was in 2008, winning the title that year.
When Florida tried to repeat in 2009, Meyer saw the mindset shift he had warned about — one that revealed itself in the SEC Championship Game, where Nick Saban’s Alabama squad dismantled the Gators, 32–13.
“Every coach’s dream is to coach a hungry, pissed-off team. Every coach’s nightmare is to coach a satisfied team. It’s awful,” Meyer said. “I would do whatever I had to do to try to piss that team off, whether it be making up articles or whatever, just to, because the way the mind works. Comfort is not a good word in the world of athletics. Comfort, I hear that and I cringe because comfort is not good. Pissed off is really good, especially in the sport of football. So I saw a pissed off team [in Alabama].”
Years later, Meyer realized from his “Large Midday Kickoff” teammate, Mark Ingram, that Alabama had been “swinging” for Florida all 12 months in 2009.
“The Florida Gators weren’t swinging for Alabama,” Meyer mentioned. “We received each sport. We had been 12-0. Nevertheless it was a freaking avenue combat each sport, from the media, our personal fan help, our gamers and our teaching employees. It was a combat.”
When Alabama took down Florida in 2009, it avenged its loss from the SEC Championship Recreation a 12 months prior. Ohio State’s opponent on Saturday has an opportunity to do one thing comparable. Texas fell to Ohio State within the Faculty Soccer Playoff semifinal final 12 months earlier than the Buckeyes went on to win the nationwide title.
Alabama’s win over Florida within the 2009 SEC Championship Recreation confirmed the mindset of a workforce being the hunters taking down the hunted, based on City Meyer. (Photograph by Jeff Robinson/Icon SMI/Icon Sport Media through Getty Photographs)
Not like the 2009 SEC Championship Recreation, although, Saturday’s matchup received’t decide the destiny of both workforce. Nonetheless, it’s a troublesome check for what shapes as much as be a laborious street forward for No. 3 Ohio State.
As Day seems to be to do one thing that his mentor by no means did, Meyer recalled an illuminating dialog that he had with former Chicago Cubs supervisor Joe Maddon a 12 months after their World Collection season in 2016 that spoke to how tough it’s to repeat.
“He was depressing in 2017,” Meyer mentioned of Maddon. “[The Cubs] had the identical workforce again, nice gamers and I nonetheless suppose they had been in first place. I walked in [to see Maddon] and he mentioned, ‘That is terrible.’
“He truly confirmed me a bit of paper from NHL, NBA, NCAA basketball, soccer and all the most important sports activities and the way onerous it’s to repeat. It’s low single digits, if I keep in mind proper. It was like 2% or one thing like that of groups ever within the main sports activities repeat. It is not since you’re dropping gamers quite a lot of instances. It’s as a result of the mindset you go from is a prizefighter to a man that you simply’re taking part in protection on a regular basis.”
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