Urban Meyer Adding Everett Withers To Ohio State Staff

Withers has 17 years of college coaching experience along with seven seasons of NFL experience. He spent six years as the Tennessee Titans defensive backs coach and a year as the defensive quality control coach for the New Orleans Saints.

Withers’ college experience includes stints with Austin Peay, Tulane, Southern Miss, Louisville, Texas, Minnesota and North Carolina.

Withers fashioned a 7-5 record out of a UNC team that lost head coach Butch Davis just before the season began. His 2009 defense ranked No. 6 in the country, while his 2010 squad ranked No. 30.

With the bowl season still a few days away from kicking off, we have some extra time to remain focused on the future. We’re going to take a look at how future depth charts may take shape for new coaches, particularly those who will likely be installing a slightly new system. That means Rich Rodriguez at Arizona, that means Charlie Weis at Kansas, and of course that means Urban Meyer at Ohio State.

From Woody Hayes to Jim Tressel, Ohio State has won a lot of games by playing the most conservative offense imaginable. Hayes is one of about 17 coaches to whom the famous “Only three things can happen when you pass (and two of them are bad)” quote is attributed (Robert Neyland and Darrel K. Royal are two others), and the concept of Tresselball (run on first down, run on second down, kick on fourth-and-1, give your awesome defense good field position to work with) won a lot of games in the decade of the 2000s. Urban Meyer, meanwhile, was an early adopter of the spread offense; he unveiled his own version of the spread at Bowling Green in 2001, and he won big in 2002. Then, he went to Utah and won bigger. His teams won at least nine games in every season from 2002-09, he went undefeated at Utah in 2004, and he won two national titles at Florida (2006, 2008).

Not a repeat from last year, actually:

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Under Herman, Iowa State ranked No. 56, No. 99, and No. 73 in total offense over the past three years, though Herman’s 2008 Rice offense ranked No. 10 in the country. That’s also more or less par for the course in Ames, so let’s not judge too harshly.

Meyer may retain certain members of the current staff beyond defensive coordinator Luke Fickell, such as linebackers coach Mike Vrabel. He’s also reportedly looking to pick off from Florida’s staff, having already grabbed strength coach Mickey Marotti.

Gators coach Will Muschamp knows replacing Marotti is an important task:

Florida receivers coach Aubrey Hill has reportedly been another Meyer target, and the Orlando Sentinel lists linebackers coach D.J. Durkin as another.

“I am excited about the future of this program,” Morris said in a statement. “We have outstanding young players on this offense this year and I know we have some outstanding student-athletes who will be joining the program next year. We have a bright future and we feel we will continue to be one of the most explosive offenses in the nation.”

Morris will turn to the task of prepping Clemson for its Orange Bowl against West Virginia.

Urban Meyer had previously been reported elsewhere as being interested in bringing Morris aboard as his Ohio State offensive coordinator.

Marotti coached with Meyer in Gainesville, then stuck around as part of Will Muschamp’s ranks. The Dispatch notes he and Meyer met at Ohio State in 1987. Scout’s Ohio State site reports Marotti is essentially a done deal, for what it’s worth.

Post-Jim Tressel interim head coach Luke Fickell is to be retained as the team’s defensive coordinator, making for one crowded staff indeed.

Wednesday night I was fortunate enough to chat with Tyler T. of Along The Olentangy, the excellent Ohio State site on the SB Nation network. Our main topic of conversation was, of course, Urban Meyer. And specifically Urban’s plan to recruit at Ohio State.

And it’s safe to say that Tyler believes Meyer is going to be a major hit.

According to Blevins, Stoops has been in Columbus this week and has other schools interested in hiring him for other spots.

Stoops coached as an assistant at Iowa, Kansas State, and Oklahoma before taking over the Arizona program.

People in Columbus are justifiably excited about the hiring of new head football coach Urban Meyer. From his time in Gainesville, Meyer is known as an excellent recruiter. And while he says he won’t work at the level that drove him to health problems and a brief retirement, he’ll still be expected to haul in blue-chip talents.

But Meyer only has about 60 days until signing day, so a large part of his first class will be comprised of what was left for him by Luke Fickell, Ohio State’s interim coach.

For what it’s worth, Clemson coach Dabo Swinney has denied the rumor, as has Morris himself.

Bonuses include $100,000 to $150,000 for good APR scores, the same range for solid graduation rates, $100,000 for a Big Ten title, and $250,000 for a national championship. A Big Ten championship would also add a year to the contract. Interesting to note a national title would mean no such automatic addition, though that’s the kind of thing that gets contracts manually extended anyway.

His perks include a golf club membership and budgeted personal use of his private plane, which he’ll otherwise use for recruiting trips.

“This is the right time for Urban Meyer to lead our football program,” said Smith. “He is without a shadow of a doubt one of the premier leaders in football.”

“I am deeply honored and humbled ... to lead the Ohio State University football program,” added Meyer. “I plan on assembling the best coaching staff in college football and winning Big Ten championships. It’s good to be home.”

Urban Meyer was officially hired by Ohio State on Monday, and at least one member of his coaching staff has been decided. From the school’s official announcement:

Update: Fickell’s exact role on the staff has yet to be determined, Meyer said during his introductory press conference.

It would be great if Meyer were to issue a formal denial at something like 5:05 p.m. that he’s taken the job. He may offer clues and insights into potential compositions of his coaching staff, or he may not. The likeliest revelation there would be the pending status of current interim Luke Fickell, who’s been rumored to be up for getting his old defensive coordinator position back.

Meyer will also be asked questions about his heart and his family. Tune in to see lots of that!

Not so fast, says Armstrong himself to CBS Sports:

If you’d like to read between the lines, it appears Armstrong and Meyer were making the network aware of the coach’s ongoing negotiations with Ohio State, but not necessarily relaying to ESPN news of a done deal, at least according to this side of the story. The matter of the NCAA’s final verdict on Ohio State is still factoring into Meyer’s decision, as had been reported last week.

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That’s $5.7 million per year, which would make him the highest-salaried coach in the nation by about a half a million dollars if accurate. Ohio State has the money to pay absolutely anybody, not to mention needed a hire like Meyer to scoot the end of the Jim Tressel era a little further out of sight. That kind of money would bring pretty much anybody out of retirement, you’d think.

Meyer has proven himself an instant winner virtually everywhere he’s been. He’ll have the Big Ten’s best set of resources to work with, plus a Meyer-friendly quarterback in Braxton Miller. And he’s returning to his midwestern roots. If he were to stick around for all seven years of that reported contract, might he win the Big Ten in most of those seasons? He might!

So while many publications are tumbling over each other to confirm the news that Meyer’s agent has revealed a deal is in place, ESPN’s confirmation actually matters much more than it would otherwise. There’s simply no way the network would get this story wrong.

A conflict of interest and weird lack of transparency (SOURCES:), sure, but at least the observer got something useful out of it in the end.

Other reports had Meyer being introduced at Tuesday night’s Ohio State basketball game against Duke. We’ll see if that part happens.

Meyer, an ESPN color analyst by trade at the moment, was placed on studio duty by the network for this past weekend’s games before requesting to take the weekend off. Speculation was fueled.

Earlier this week, ESPN pulled Urban Meyer from the broadcast crew working Saturday’s Michigan-Ohio State game in Ann Arbor, MI, an unsurprising development given the rumors that Meyer may already have an agreement in place with Ohio State to take over as head coach following the game.

“We felt the studio in Bristol was the best place for him given the many storylines and top matchups going on in college football this weekend,” ESPN publicist Mike Humes tweeted on Monday. “He can offer commentary about the season, contribute to GameDay from ESPN studios and also help preview and review the significant games on the schedule.”

Contrary to reports elsewhere, Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports is reporting that Urban Meyer has not agreed to coach Ohio State. The report cites an anonymous source who is “intimately involved” in the situation, who indicated that no deal is in place and seemed to suggest that any deal is much farther off than simply agreeing on a salary.

Meyer himself has twice denied reports that he has been offered the Ohio State coaching job, but that does leave the door open for all kinds of other discussions that may or may not have happened. Somewhat fueling the speculation is his absence from the ESPN broadcast crew of this weekend’s Ohio State-Michigan game. ESPN said that he would be better used as an analyst in Bristol, Conn.