Urban Meyer opens up on Big Ten expansion, addition of USC, UCLA

On the show Urban’s Take with Tim May, former Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer discussed the latest conference realignment news, with USC and UCLA leaving the Pac-12 and joining the Big Ten. May asked Meyer about the reality that USC legends like Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush will be alumni to Big Ten school shortly, and the previous tradition of the Pac-12 conference.

“Yeah can you imagine that? There was a time where USC was on the pinnacle of college football. Pete Carroll and I’ll go back further than that, there was the Larry Smith era were they won the Rose bowl over and over again and way before that you had Terry Donahue at UCLA, the Pac-12 was strong. Washington won a championship, Arizona State was always tough, Cal was tough, and then obviously Oregon had an incredible run. So I don’t know what the future holds, that was a little shocking, but you know there is no loyalty, this is all fight for yourself and I get it. Money makes the world go round and right now that’s what’s driving all these decisions,” Meyer said.

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While it’s clear Meyer will miss the golden years and tradition of the Pac-12 conference, he does understand why the move is happening in regards to recruiting, drawing from past conference changes and detailing how recruiting in the Big Ten will change moving forward.

“I do believe it makes a lot of sense recruiting wise, some of these moves made no sense to me. When A&M went to the SEC and Arkansas, you just wonder why that happened, even Nebraska to a point. When you talk about college football Tim, it starts with recruiting and ends with recruiting. California has such good players, Ohio State and the Wolverines have gone into California recruiting a little bit now it kind of opens the floodgates a little bit. I’m not sure how much UCLA and USC will come out east recruiting, they will a little bit, but there’s so many players out west. I just see the Big Ten hitting California a little harder now,” Meyer said.

When Meyer made the move from Florida to Ohio State, he made an emphasis on recruiting the West Coast and beyond out of the Big Ten in order to keep up with other national powerhouses. But in the next coming years, it looks like that will be a necessity for all Big Ten teams with the addition of USC and UCLA if they want to keep up within the conference as it pertains to recruiting in the future.