(12-03-2013 11:43 PM)Sultan of Euphonistan Wrote:  

(12-03-2013 01:29 AM)MTPiKapp Wrote:  

(12-02-2013 12:04 PM)Usajags Wrote:  The bad part for us, if we were to beat ULL this weekend and become bowl eligible, there are some very dumb football fans that will be pissed off that we don't go to the GoDaddy.com bowl. With the argument of, "Why have a bowl in town if they aren't going to pick the hometown team".

Those are also the fans that are calling for Saban's head after losing to Auburn this weekend.

I realize it's probably a small minority of the fan base, but I'd love to have a conversation with a Bama fan dumb enough to want to fire Saban. I can understand being furious over the way the game ended and I can imagine how much worse it must be to have it happen in the Iron bowl, I wouldn't even want to tell them how crazy they are for wanting to fire him, I'd just want to know who they were wanting to replace him. Who do you replace Nick Saban with? If their answer is anyone other than Urban Meyer or Bill Belichick they're a moron, if they say Bill Belichick or Urban Meyer, they're still pretty dumb and/ or delusional. I'm not entirely convinced Urban Meyer wouldn't take the Bama job. Ohio State is a great job, but Alabama is a better one, the Big Ten is not the SEC, and he's already tired of the Big Ten's perception and as good as I think he is, if they end up in the title game they're gonna get drilled by Florida State, the Buckeyes haven't seen an offense or a defense anywhere near FSU's caliber. So I think Meyer absolutely would consider an offer from Bama, but personally, there's no way I'd prefer to have Meyer over Saban. Belichick is an adequate answer to the question "who do you replace Nick Saban with?" but completely unrealistic.

I agree with you that it is crazy to fire Saban.

I also vastly perfer the SEC to the Big 10 (my most hated conference EVER).

But I really disagree with you on Alabama being a "better" job than Ohio State. Ohio State is the game in town in Ohio and unlike Alabama it is the ONLY game in town that matters to almost the entire population of Ohio. There is no Auburn in Ohio to challenge them (and no the MAC schools and Cincinnati do not compete with Ohio State in terms of importance in any meaningful way sadly). Guess where Meyer is from? Ohio. There are so very few places I can even imagine him leaving Ohio State for and that is only a place like Notre Dame if and only if that school has a special place in his heart rather than the much more common Ohio State.

If this was the mid 2000s nobody would be saying anything about Alabama. You need to think beyond what is big now and look at all the factors and I don't see Meyer leaving OSU just to make a lateral move to Alabama (both are among the biggest names in college football period) where the intensity is higher (and you know he does not handle that well) and he has less personal connections with.

I agree with you that it may not be a better job than tOSU for Meyer specifically, but I still say it's a better job, even if marginally so. Ohio was once a top 3 HS recruiting state, now it might be fifth, and Pennsylvania has fallen as well. Georgia has jumped probably all the way to 4th, Louisiana is has jumped way up there as well, and while Meyer is recruiting Florida and the south fairly well, it's easier to recruit kids in the south to the SEC than it is the B1G. Another factor that would make it easier to turn down Bama is the playoff. Meyer may have been left out of the top two at 13-0 on more than one occasion moving forward, but he shouldn't have to worry about cracking the top 4, though to extrapolate that point, he'd likely have an easier time cracking the top 4 at 12-1 at Bama than at Ohio State. So while the path to 13-0 may be easier at Ohio State, there is a little bit more room for error in the SEC as well.