On August 22, 2018, Urban Meyer, the head coach of Ohio State Football, was suspended for three games. The cause: he had known about former assistant Ohio State Football coach Zach Smith’s abuse to his wife, Courtney Smith, and said nothing about it.
The three games Urban Meyer will miss will be against Oregon State (0-9), Rutgers (3-6), and, the only REAL challenge: TCU (7-2). The question is: “how bad is it that Urban Meyer will be forced to miss the first three games without getting a paycheck?” Here are the reasons for Urban Meyer’s absence not being so bad.
1.The first two games he will be missing won’t be tough at all. ESPN made a football power index. According to ESPN, this means,”The Football Power Index (FPI) is a measure of team strength that is meant to be the best predictor of a team’s performance going forward for the rest of the season.” On the list, Ohio State is ranked no. 4. The best team that OSU faces, without Meyer, according to the list, would be no. 27 TCU. The next best team would be no. 67 Rutgers, which is WAY under Ohio State. The worst team out of the three is, obviously, no. 98 Oregon State. So, in theory, Ohio State would crush all three of those schools, if they tried.
2. Ohio State has amazing players. In an article published by Sports Illustrated, they ranked all the college football players from 1-100. Ohio State has FIVE players who made the top 100. 2 standout players from the list include: Nick Bosa, DE, and J.K. Dobbins, the running back. Knowing these two standout players will be making their much awaited return this year, their leadership and talent may be so great, that they don’t even need Urban. Meanwhile, the only other school that had at least one player that made the list was TCU, with two players. Knowing this, it is safe to assume that Ohio State may have a hard time with TCU, but the other two teams will be no problem for them.
3.The schedule remaining shouldn’t be that difficult. After the three games, the remaining schedule should be easy to win. There are only four ranked teams out of the 12 games that Ohio State will play. Ohio State is ranked no. 5. The best ranked team Ohio state will have to face this season is no. 16 TCU.
Works Cited: https://www.si.com/college-football/2018/06/19/top-100-player-rankings-2018-full-list & http://www.espn.com/college-football/statistics/teamratings
Vincent Aldridge
Vincent Aldridge ('22) is a senior, and this is his fourth year as embedded reporter for the Redwood Baseball team, and his first year as Sports editor for 1st Period. He has been in Journalism since his freshman year, and he wants to work for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the future. You can contact him by email with: vince.al8741@vusd.us
Tags: football, ohio state, sports, urban meyer
