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[quote name='oldschooler' timestamp='1324252257' post='1076702']
[url="https://twitter.com/#!/AriWassermanBSB"]AriWassermanBSB[/url]Ari Wasserman




[url="https://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23OhioState"][s]#[/s][b]OhioState[/b][/url] gets a commitment from five-star defensive end Noah Spence. Huge pickup for the Buckeyes.
[url="https://twitter.com/#!/AriWassermanBSB/status/148545994131374080"]5 minutes ag[/url]






[url="https://twitter.com/#!/AriWassermanBSB"]AriWassermanBSB[/url]Ari Wasserman




Spence is one of the best prospects in the nation and is even rated higher than fellow five-star DE commit Adolphus Washington.
[url="https://twitter.com/#!/AriWassermanBSB/status/148546845075976193"]2 minutes ago[/url]






[url="https://twitter.com/#!/AriWassermanBSB"]AriWassermanBSB[/url]Ari Wasserman




It's almost scary to think how good this defensive line will be for the [url="https://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23Buckeyes"][s]#[/s][b]Buckeyes[/b][/url] with these commitments.
[url="https://twitter.com/#!/AriWassermanBSB/status/148546914521067520"]2 minutes ago[/url]



:headbang:
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[size=8][b]Wooooo Hoooo!![/b][/size]

[size=8][size=3] :dance: :dance: :dance: :dance: :dance: :dance: :dance: :dance:[/size][/size]

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[size=6][b]New Game Plan: Smelling the Roses[/b][/size]

By PETE THAMEL

Published: December 29, 2011



COLUMBUS, Ohio — Back in 1986, when Urban Meyer was a graduate assistant at Ohio State, he shared an office the size of “a little furnace room” with five of his peers, his primary duty the cutting and splicing of 16-millimeter film.

Meyer made about $100 per month and worked 18-hour days, and his wardrobe consisted almost entirely of team-issued apparel. He lived in an off-campus apartment so dilapidated that his wife, Shelley, who was then his girlfriend, still recalls the dirty carpet and crooked shades. His only sources of food were team meals and the free egg rolls available at happy hours around Columbus.

“If it wasn’t training table or happy hour, I didn’t eat,” Meyer said. “That’s serious.”

Nearly three decades later, Meyer has returned to Columbus with a salary that pays him $4 million a year, a palatial office and a much more complicated task than finding free egg rolls. As his career comes full circle, Meyer’s ability to turn the Ohio State football program around will be tied directly to his being able to find the balance between being a relentless coach and a healthy father.

Health problems, burnout and the desire to spend more time with his family prompted Meyer to step down as the coach of Florida temporarily after the 2009 season and permanently after the 2010 season.

“Without getting too overdramatic, you have to go somewhere you don’t like so you don’t want to go back,” Meyer said. “I’ve talked to many people about that. I’ve been so fortunate, and you keep skimming along and moving so fast it’s, ‘What’s next? What’s next?’ instead of enjoying the day. I need to quit looking so hard forward and enjoy moments and days. I have to do that. I will do that.”

Meyer is 37 pounds heavier than he was during his darkest days at Florida, when stress, esophageal spasms and an inability to disconnect from his job led to a gaunt frame. Doctors identified the cause of the esophageal pain, which has gone away, and with that has come a clean bill of health. Meyer said he now felt the best he had since the beginning of his tenure at Florida, where his teams went 65-15 and won two national championships in six seasons.

After a year in which he worked as an analyst for ESPN and spent time with his children, Meyer, according to those who know him best, appears to have regained his health, his energy and, most important, his perspective.

But for all of the assurances and confidence, there is still a sense of trepidation from Meyer’s friends and family. They remember the extreme weight loss, the 911 call and the night spent in the hospital after Florida’s loss to Alabama in the 2009 Southeastern Conference title game. They recall the emotional depths he plunged to after defeats.

“I think he learned that some of the things about coaching college football that he thought were desperate and dire maybe weren’t that important,” said Shelley Meyer, who has worked as a psychiatric nurse. She added that she was still not certain how her husband would handle losses.

“I really don’t know how he’s going to react,” she said. “I feel hopeful and confident that he’s not going to react the way he has before.”

Meyer’s oldest daughter, Nicki, listed on a pink piece of loose leaf paper exactly what changes he needed to make before he became Ohio State’s coach. Meyer keeps the piece of paper in a red Ohio State folder on his desk, a temporary home until he gets it framed.

Nicki Meyer drew up an 11-rule contract that she forced her father to sign Nov. 15 when he broached the idea of returning to coaching with his family.

“Failure to comply with all of the following will result in no more coaching,” Nicki, 21, wrote, underlining the final three words for emphasis. Some of the rules are lighthearted, like buying her an iPad. Mostly, though, they hint at Meyer’s past struggles with balancing his job and his family; the contract demands that Meyer silence his cellphone when he sleeps, eat three meals a day and communicate daily with his three children.

Meyer’s voice caught during a recent interview in his office when he pointed out that last rule.

“I will continue to communicate daily with my kids,” Meyer said, shaking his head. “I lost that.”

Shelley Meyer said her husband spent the last year “indulging himself in the things he felt guilty about missing,” mainly the day-to-day activities of his children. He was the first-base coach for his son Nate’s Little League team and saw his daughters play more volleyball in the last year than he had in the previous half-dozen. The games that he called for ESPN were always Saturdays at noon so he could be home and spend Sundays with his family.

As the weeks passed, though, Meyer missed coaching football. To get back to where he could do it again, Shelley Meyer said, he had to recalibrate his thinking, to understand that taking time out for his personal life during the workday would not result in the demise of his program.

“That’s how he ran his whole career: he thought things would fall apart or another school would get a leg up if he took 30 minutes to work out at lunch every day,” she said. “That’s twisted, and he realized it. He knew that things were out of whack.”

In November, Meyer dealt with the death of his father, Bud, who shaped his unrelenting personality. When Urban Meyer first stepped down at Florida after the 2009 regular season — he returned the next day — Bud Meyer described why his son could not suddenly learn to accept losing.

“You can’t change your essence,” Bud Meyer said then. “You can change if you drink orange juice or grapefruit juice for breakfast. You can’t change the nature of your being.”

No one would have enjoyed Meyer’s return to coaching at Ohio State more than his father. With a straight face, Urban Meyer said the sermons at church when he was growing up in Ashtabula, Ohio, revolved around St. John, Ohio State and the Cleveland Browns.

Meyer said he still found himself instinctively calling his father, hitting the button on his phone that automatically dials his number. “It rings,” Meyer said quietly, staring at his phone. “He’s not going to answer.”

Bud Meyer raised his only son to hate losing as much as he did. Strike out in a baseball game? Bud Meyer had Urban run home. Break curfew? The punishment was doled out in push-ups and sit-ups.

“I mean since I was 6 years old, that was the household I was raised in,” Meyer said. “You don’t lose. And if you do lose, you go find a way not to lose within the rules. I don’t anticipate that changing much. It’s hard to be phony.”

As Meyer climbed the coaching ladder at Ohio State, Illinois State, Colorado State and Notre Dame, defeats were accompanied by extreme migraine headaches. Meyer would become so despondent after a loss that family members invited to a postgame reception at his house would leave early to beat the traffic. Meyer said he could not get that low anymore.

“To start acting like I’m enjoying the evening, that’s not going to happen,” Meyer said. “But it’s not going to go to the extreme.”

Meyer said he loved his time with ESPN. He bonded with his broadcast partners, Chris Spielman and Dave Pasch, and appreciated the work of the off-camera personnel.

His favorite aspect was that he was given the ability to choose what campuses he went to, which allowed him the opportunity to discuss football with other successful coaches. The advice that resonated with him most came from Oklahoma Coach Bob Stoops, who has been able to balance a fierce intensity while coaching with a strong family life in a way that Meyer admired.

Meyer said Stoops had a simple philosophy: “I’m going to coach and coach real hard. But I’m going home. I’m going to take my kids to school in the morning, and no one on this planet can stop me from doing that.”

Meyer said: “I’m looking at him, and he’s serious. I say that, but I have to talk to this recruit. I got. ...” His voice trailed off. Then he added, “I learned a lot that day.”


In a side office in the football complex at Ohio State, the dual life of the Buckeyes football program is on full display. (Meyer will formally take over the team after Ohio State plays Florida in the Gator Bowl on Monday.) Meyer brought three of his stalwart staff members from Florida to Columbus. The most crucial is Mickey Marotti, who will hold the title of assistant athletic director for football sports performance and will hire four full-time strength and conditioning staff members to work only with football players.


“You can’t function in today’s era of college football without a superstar as a weight coach,” Meyer said. “That’s more important than a coordinator or a line coach. That’s changed.”

The other former Gators staffers are Mark Pantoni, who will be in charge of recruiting operations as the director of player personnel, and Brian Voltolini, who will run the day-to-day operations of the program.

“I just can’t imagine doing this without those three,” Meyer said.

The familiarity is important. Marotti is there to remind Meyer to eat, to prod him to exercise and to help him stay balanced between his job and his life. Marotti is one of the few people who can jokingly call Meyer “Poopy Drawers,” referring to his weight loss in 2009, when his pants began to sag.

Marotti said that he, too, needed to evaluate the health and well-being of Meyer, his longtime friend, before making the decision to uproot his family and move to Columbus.

“That was one of my concerns,” Marotti said of Meyer’s mind-set about his return. “But I knew. I knew right away, just how he was talking. My wife knew, too. We knew he was ready to go.”

The results so far have been positive. Meyer has lured three defensive linemen ranked in ESPNU’s list of the top 150 prospects and rediscovered the adrenaline rush of pulling off a successful recruiting coup.

None of the recruits who had committed to Ohio State have changed their minds since the news last week that the program will be barred from the postseason next year. Marotti said Meyer walked around Ohio State’s recruiting room like a Wall Street trader on the floor of the stock exchange, showing the energy that he had in his the early days at Florida. More important, perhaps, Marotti said that Meyer was taking time to go for walks during the day and working out in the evening.

Meyer looks back fondly on his time at Florida, where he was ultimately overwhelmed by the outsize expectations he created. Shelley Meyer gushed about the family’s experience in Gainesville, and said the university and its fans would always have a place in her heart.

Urban Meyer feels the same way, and he is still close with Florida’s athletic director, Jeremy Foley. Ultimately, the two national titles that Meyer won raised expectations so high that the joy of winning could not surpass the despair of losing.

“That definitely is something that we talked about this past year,” Shelley Meyer said. “What are you doing it for? What are you doing to make sure that you enjoy the wins?”





http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/30/sports/ncaafootball/ohio-state-coach-urban-meyer-emphasizes-balance-pleasing-family.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=sports
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pairing stoneburner with Notre Dame's tight end coach, who has consistently pumped out NFL TE's, could be a great get.


[quote]JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Sources said today that it appears new Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer has filled his first Buckeyes coaching staff by raiding Notre Dame to lure two Ohio natives and college coaching veterans, Tim Hinton and Ed Warinner.

There was no official confirmation from Ohio State officials leading up to the Gator Bowl. But the Notre Dame website said that Hinton and Warinner had left to pursue other opportunities.

Meyer said earlier he wants to introduce his complete group of assistant coaches to the team when he stages an early morning team meeting Tuesday. Though hired on Nov.28, Meyer has been only recruiting and working on his staff the past month while interim head coach Luke Fickell led the team through the bowl.

It’s expected that Warinner will coach the offensive line, just as he has done much of his coaching career, which has taken him from Akron through Army, Air Force, two stints at Kansas around a two years at Illinois before joining Brian Kelly’s staff at Notre Dame in 2010.

Warinner, 50, is a native of Strasburg. He played at Mount Union, from which he graduated in 1984.

Hinton, 51, is a 1984 graduate of Wilmington College, and he earned his Masters from Ohio State in 1987 after serving as a graduate assistant for the Buckeyes and coach Earle Bruce in 1985 and '86. Meyer was a GA at OSU in 1986 and ’87.

Hinton was an active member of the Ohio High School Football Coaches Association as he climbed the ranks, from head coaching jobs at Zane Trace, Van Wert and Marion Harding, where he led that team to two state regional finals.

He moved to college coaching in 2004, joining Mark Dantonio’s staff at Cincinnati, and stayed there when Kelly took over in 2007. He then went with Kelly to Notre Dame as running backs coach.

What Hinton’s duties will be at OSU aren’t clear, though if it’s on the offensive side he likely will be in charge of tight ends and could be the designated offensive coordinator on the staff.

Thus Meyer’s nine-man staff includes, on the defensive side, co-coordinators Fickell and Everett Withers, Mike Vrabel and Taver Johnson; and on the offensive side, coordinator Tom Herman, Stan Drayton, Zach Smith, Warinner and Hinton.

Meanwhile, junior tight end Jake Stoneburner did not dress for today's game. He has been sidelined since not recovering fully from arthroscopic surgery on his left knee following the regular-season finale against Michigan.
Missing from the OSU roster today will be wide receiver T.Y. Williams, who was not brought on the trip because of a violation of team rules.[/quote]

[url="http://www.buckeyextra.com/content/stories/2012/01/02/0102-meyer-fills-ohio-state-coaching-staff.html"]http://www.buckeyextra.com/content/stories/2012/01/02/0102-meyer-fills-ohio-state-coaching-staff.html[/url]
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[quote name='Bengals1181' timestamp='1325527623' post='1083225']
pairing stoneburner with Notre Dame's tight end coach, who has consistently pumped out NFL TE's, could be a great get.




[url="http://www.buckeyextra.com/content/stories/2012/01/02/0102-meyer-fills-ohio-state-coaching-staff.html"]http://www.buckeyext...hing-staff.html[/url]
[/quote]

I [i]think[/i] Hinton was the RB coach.

See my post from December 15:

http://forum.go-bengals.com/index.php?showtopic=62649&view=findpost&p=1075240
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[url="https://twitter.com/#!/STONEYeleven"]STONEYeleven[/url] [color=#999999][size=3]Jake Stoneburner[/size][/color]
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Twitter=Done. Me=back for senior year, leading this team, and shocking the world!! [url="https://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23gobucks"][s]#[/s][b]gobucks[/b][/url] #12-0[/font]

[url="https://twitter.com/#!/STONEYeleven/status/154248176839294977"]55 minutes ago [/url][size=2][url="https://twitter.com/#"][b]Favorite[/b][/url] [url="https://twitter.com/#"][b]Retweet[/b][/url] [url="https://twitter.com/#"][b]Reply[/b][/url][/size]
[color=#999999][size=2]Retweeted by [url="https://twitter.com/#!/FOXSportsOH"][b]FOXSportsOH[/b][/url][/size][/color]
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[url="https://twitter.com/#!/DhaniJones"]DhaniJones[/url] [color=#999999][size=3]Dhani Jones[/size][/color]
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Let those who have a VOICE, SPEAK!!! RT [url="https://twitter.com/#!/DesmondHoward"][s]@[/s][b]DesmondHoward[/b][/url]: OSU's new coach Urban Meyer has banned his players from using twitter. Thoughts?[/font]

[url="https://twitter.com/#!/DhaniJones/status/154268249314435073"]3 minutes ago [/url][size=2][url="https://twitter.com/#"][b]Favorite[/b][/url] [url="https://twitter.com/#"][b]Retweet[/b][/url] [url="https://twitter.com/#"][b]Reply[/b][/url][/size]
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[quote name='Bengals1181' timestamp='1325616391' post='1083806']
[url="https://twitter.com/#!/DhaniJones"]DhaniJones[/url] [color=#999999][size=3]Dhani Jones[/size][/color]




Let those who have a VOICE, SPEAK!!! RT [url="https://twitter.com/#!/DesmondHoward"][s]@[/s][b]DesmondHoward[/b][/url]: OSU's new coach Urban Meyer has banned his players from using twitter. Thoughts?

[url="https://twitter.com/#!/DhaniJones/status/154268249314435073"]3 minutes ago [/url][size=2][url="https://twitter.com/#"][b]Favorite[/b][/url] [url="https://twitter.com/#"][b]Retweet[/b][/url] [url="https://twitter.com/#"][b]Reply[/b][/url][/size]
[/quote]

Love it.

Twitter = the internet equivalent of getting trashed and shooting your mouth off in front of a group of people...
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[quote name='ValleyBengal' timestamp='1325870827' post='1085001']
Noah Spence looked like a Man amongst boys in the Under Armour game yesterday. Can't wait to c him in action at the shoe.
[/quote]

I only watched a little of the game (but I did DVR it). I saw one drive where Spence was on the field. He got a sack on one play and was in the backfield on the next play where the DT dropped the RB for a loss. Can't wait to see him in S&G.
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  • 2 weeks later...
[size=6][b]Two Ohio St football players kicked off team[/b][/size]


COLUMBUS, Ohio - Ohio State has released defensive backs Dominic Clarke and DerJuan Gambrell from their scholarships due to violations of team rules.

Clarke was arrested on suspicion of DUI earlier this month, and Gambrell is facing an assault charge from an incident last week.

Clarke was charged with disorderly conduct, fined and suspended one game in October after police said he discharged a BB gun on campus. A redshirt sophomore, he played in 11 games last season.

Gambrell redshirted last season, his first.




[url="http://www.foxsportsohio.com/01/15/12/Two-Ohio-St-football-players-kicked-off-/landing_ohiostate.html?blockID=646814&feedID=3631"]http://www.foxsportsohio.com/01/15/12/Two-Ohio-St-football-players-kicked-off-/landing_ohiostate.html?blockID=646814&feedID=3631[/url]
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ESPN 150 O-lineman Joey O’Connor committed to Ohio State today. He is projected to be a G or C at tOSU.

He is a former PSU commit that left after the Sandusky scandal.

24/7 Sports now has Ohio State's class #4 in the country.
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[url="https://twitter.com/#!/AriWassermanBSB"]AriWassermanBSB[/url]Ari Wasserman




According to [url="https://twitter.com/#!/BillBankGreene"][s]@[/s][b]BillBankGreene[/b][/url], four-star linebacker Camren Williams has committed to Ohio State. Was previously committed to PSU.
[url="https://twitter.com/#!/AriWassermanBSB/status/160456975556157442"]1 minute ago[/url]
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[color=#444444]
[url="https://twitter.com/#!/AriWassermanBSB"]AriWassermanBSB[/url] [color=#999999][size=3]Ari Wasserman[/size][/color]
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Williams' teammate, four-star CB Armani Reeves, was on an official visit with Williams this week. Probably had an influence on him, too.[/font]
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[url="https://twitter.com/#!/AriWassermanBSB/status/160457899158679554"]42 seconds ago[/url][/color]
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