Urban Meyer the newest Buckeye

I wonder how many of the names on the plaque went on to coach against the Nittany Lions. I'm assuming Urban Meyer is the first.

With the hiring of Meyer by The Ohio State University, it improves the quality of coaching in the Big Ten Conference. Meyer had much success at Florida and Utah before that, and much is expect in Columbus. There are still positions to be filled at Penn State and Illinois so until those are made it will be hard to debate this, but collectively, where will the Big Ten rate - as a conference - among the BCS conference schools in quality of coaches.

The debate would begin with how to measure it. Number of National Championship? Number of Conference Championships? Individual game win? Number of players to the NFL? Those that graduated?

The are other conferences that have their share of coaching changes, most notably the Pac 12. Based on Meyer's history, it brings increased credibility to the Big Ten.

College Football Week 12

We are re-visited by the original yound lady that started our weekly look at cheerleaders in this weekly posting. Brianna of UCLA is courtesy of Sports Illustrated. As said on the SI.com site, she is a Green Bay Packer fan. Good enough for me to highlight her a second time. It is also apporpriate to highlight her as the rivalry of the two BCS LA schools face each other at the Coliseum on Saturday. As the USC Marching Band tweeted today, "It's TROY WEEK! "High up in the hills of Westwood, sprawled offensive to the eye, lies a Cal extension campus known as Westwood High..." No other sport has the rivalries like College Football....Notre Dame lost for the fifth time in their home finale to Connecticut. It is hard to find anyone defending the Irish head coach, Charlie Weis as most have him packing up his office once he returns from Palo Alto this weekend. There are many reasons / excuses thrown out as to how difficult it is to win in South Bend, but there are many advantages to coaching in this Northern Indiana college town. Facilities are unrivaled, support is strong by administration and alumni, and national recognition is second to none. Many names are being thrown out as to Charlie's successor including Urban Meyer at Florida, Bob Stoops at Oklahoma, and Brian Kelley at Cincinnati. The one supposed knock against Notre Dame are the tough academic equirements. If this is such a concern, Notre Dame needs to expand their search beyond the aforementioned names. Meyer and Stoops have established programs have nothing to gain by making the move. Kelley is at an institution that allows him to bring in students that a Notre Dame may decline. If this is the case is Kelley the right match? The one proven coach who has dealt with tough academic guidelines and has a great name in the local recruiting area of South Bend is Pat Fitzgerald of Northwestern. This young coach has done an outstanding coaching job with lesser talent playing similar teams facing Notre Dame. While it would take much to lure Fitzgerald from his alma mater, it will be tough for him to do much more in the Big Ten Conference....Michigan. Wether or not the fans in Ann Arbor want a change, there will be no such change coming. A fan or not of Rich Rodriguez he does deserve at least one more year to get the program back into the top ten that the Wolverine fans are accustomed to. It will also be hard to lure a good coach to Michigan with their Athletic Director on the clock before retiring September 4, 2010. If a change at the top of the football program is to come, a new AD must be hired first. The Wolverines aren't prepared to do that. Michigan fans should be patient as well. Those who wanted Les Miles of LSU in 2007 will have one more year to evaluate him as the Tigers head coach. Miles, who won the National Championship in his third year with the school has had troubles acheiving such level since. While his teams have been very good in a tough SEC, they haven't reached the SEC title game.