For Urban Meyer and Ohio State, "there is no such thing as just a drill. We keep score. Everything is competitive"
You could argue that if coaches around the country had the choice to duplicate the culture of one college football in the country, the culture that Urban Meyer and his staff have created in Columbus would be in the top two or three among coaches polled.
Ohio State is winning a lot of games, competing for championships and a spot in the playoffs year after year, and preparing players for both the NFL, and life after football.
The real question is, how are Urban and his staff managing to get consistent results year after year? Albert Breer of NFL.com researched how a number of coaches are approaching "the recruiting revolution," with today's high school recruits, and the article includes the approach that Meyer has in place and one of the keys is an emphasis on competition. The Buckeyes put a "scoreboard" on literally every drill, and it's a belief that Urban has carried with him from Bowling Green, to Utah, to Florida, and now to Ohio State.
"There's no such thing as doing a drill here -- we keep score," Meyer told Breer in the piece.
"Everything is competitive. That started for us at Bowling Green, took it to a new level at Utah. People come here and say, 'My god, you wake up and you're competing.' At the end of the day, every drill is graded -- stalk-block drills, one-on-ones, circle drill, the scrimmage."
"When it's over, someone gets Gatorade, and the other guy runs gassers and is drinking out of a hose."
Every highly touted high school recruit in th country has dreams of playing in the NFL, and while some programs and their coaches shy away from talking about the NFL during the recruiting process. Ohio State's staff takes a different approach.
"We're not ashamed of it. When I got into coaching, I heard people in recruiting and other areas say to kids, 'Don't worry about the NFL.' We don't do that. We want our guys to want it. It's a great way to earn a living. In my mind, there are very few jobs that pay you that kind of money to do something that you love. So long as it's not in the way of the team concept, we're gonna help them get there."
