Urban and The Chad

As we all know, Urban Meyer developed a pretty strong man crush on Chad Morris last year.

Meyer was in town on back-to-back weekends serving as an ESPN analyst for Clemson's wins over Auburn and Florida State, and he gushed about Morris' offense.

So it was no surprise at all that Meyer came after Morris a few months later when he took over as head coach of Ohio State. Meyer threw a bunch of money at The Chad, as much as $1.7 million according to what we heard, but Morris ended up staying put and getting a cost-of-living (large) raise from $450,000 to $1.3 million.

Meyer ended up getting Tom Herman from Iowa State and paying him $420,000. And from everything I've seen over the last few months, Herman is learning Meyer's system more than vice-versa. It seems like Meyer is running the offensive show, and he's added the up-tempo offense to the stuff he was running at Florida.

Meyer's courting of Morris was intriguing, and it becomes even more intriguing in hindsight after you read Wright Thompson's fantastic story on Meyer's attempt to balance his family life with his maniacal football obsession.

This is total speculation, but it seems like reasonable speculation: Maybe Meyer was hoping to give the offensive keys to Morris and step back, taking a more CEO approach?

When you offer someone as much money as Meyer was offering Morris, it's safe to assume the guy being pursued is going to take on a pretty involved role.

Their ideas of attacking defenses are so similar, too. Morris once studied Meyer's run-game stuff when he was at Florida. Both of these coaches believe in the power-running philosophy, essentially using traditional I-formation running plays out of unconventional formations and then throwing deep play-action passes off that. Both get offended when their schemes are labeled as "spread" and grouped with some of the more finesse approaches out there. Both have strong beliefs in physical, hard-nosed football being fused with their inventive bells and whistles.

Meyer had the perfect description when he called his offense "power football with a spread set."

When he was in Clemson last September, Meyer seemed giddy as he diagrammed Morris' plays for the viewers and marveled at the up-tempo stuff.

Who knows? Maybe Meyer's fascination with The Chad played a role in inspiring him to return to the game he loves.

LW