Why I’ve changed my mind about Urban Meyer at Michigan State

Urban Meyer has been a hot topic among Michigan State fans for weeks and I’ve been rolling my eyes. Not anymore.

Watching the final seconds tick off what should have been Michigan State’s first win in Big Ten play this year, I felt empty. For the first time in a long time, I was unfazed by a Spartan loss. I wasn’t even surprised that Michigan State blew a 24-6 lead at Rutgers. It was almost expected. The coaching staff truly is that bad. No amount of trash-talking from rival fans could get me to even offer up a return jab. I sat there and took the punches.

That’s what a broken fan looks like.

So as I went on with my Saturday watching other games and teams like Notre Dame, Washington, and North Carolina win meaningful ranked games, I sat there wondering to myself: “When will Michigan State feel like this again?”

It’s been two years since Michigan State football made fans happy. But that was even just a flash in the pan. The past eight years have been borderline nightmare-ish. Outside of the 2017 and 2021 seasons, Michigan State has been irrelevant on the national scene. It’s been a far cry from the glory days of Mark Dantonio. That almost feels like decades ago at this point. It’s because the coaching staff in East Lansing hasn’t been up to par in almost a decade.

That has to change. It needs to change.

Michigan State is a top 20 college football program of all time (not just my opinion, but rather an actual ranking from the AP) with big-time donors and a recent history of success. It’s a program that has shown that it can compete at the highest levels. Heck, it won 11 games in year two of Mel Tucker which means that the past two coaches have had at least one 11-win season. Dantonio won 10 games on the regular.

So why are we looking at current Group of Five coaches or current assistants to be the next head coach? Why don’t we give the donors what they want their money to go toward? That would be a championship culture.

Who could almost surely bring that to East Lansing? Urban Meyer.

I’ll admit, I was not on board with the Urban Meyer talk early on. I thought it was ridiculous. There was just no way he’d even give Michigan State the time of day and it just wouldn’t look good for the athletic department to go from Tucker’s scandal to a guy who has had off-field issues of his own. I wanted those rumors squashed immediately.

But then I thought more about it.

With each week’s disappointing loss, the idea of Urban grew on me more and more. We’re welcoming Washington, USC, Oregon, and UCLA to the Big Ten next season and each of those teams was ranked in Week 7. How the heck is this Michigan State team that can’t hold on to an 18-point lead against Rutgers going to compete in the new Big Ten? The answer: Urban Meyer.

And polarizing MSU Twitter (X) figure Justin Spiro of the Spiro Avenue podcast brought up a good point. The media already loves vilifying Michigan State, so it truly wouldn’t matter what move the university makes. If the athletic department hires a “safe” choice, they’ll be condemned for not going bigger and settling and it would somehow be turned around into: “Well, Michigan State couldn’t hire a big name because it’s an undesirable program within a university with a checkered past. No elite coach would want that job.”

Michigan State can’t win with the media anyways. So why care what the media thinks? Why not go for the home run?

The program tried to go for the home run back in 2020 and nearly landed Luke Fickell, but rumors of his wife not being on board squashed any potential deal on the table. Michigan State needs to get back in the batter’s box and swing for the fences again.

There is a former national title-winning head coach currently spending his weekends talking about the game he loves instead of being part of it. If he never went to the NFL, he’d still be at Ohio State winning titles. So why not give him the reins to a program that has had success against him and turn it into one of the best the Big Ten has to offer (again)?

And if you’re worried that he’s not a guaranteed success, that’s fair. Nothing in life is a guarantee. But Meyer is as close as it gets. He won at Bowling Green, and then Utah, and then Florida, and finally at Ohio State. He has compiled a 187-32 record. Michigan State has lost more games since 2017 than Meyer has lost in his entire 17-year coaching career at the college level. Think about that.

If anyone is going to right this ship immediately, it’s Meyer.

And players will want to play for him. You see what Deion Sanders is doing at Colorado? Well, Meyer would have the same effect in East Lansing. Who wouldn’t want to play for a head coach who has a few national titles under his belt and is arguably a top-three college coach of all time?

It’s time to realize that this program needs a home run in the worst way. Urban Meyer is just that.

No more settling for mediocrity. Top 20 all-time college football programs need to make big-time moves.

I don’t know about you, but I refuse to spend another season dreading Saturdays.