Urban Meyer sees G5 leagues becoming the 'feeder system for the big boys'

Urban Meyer famously cut his teeth as a collegiate head coach in what is now considered the Group of Five, begining his 17-year coaching career in college with back-to-back two-year stints in the Mid-American and Mountain West conferences at Bowling Green and Utah, respectively.

But like his own career, which saw Meyer win three combined national championships at Florida (2006, 2008) and Ohio State (2014) between 2005-18, the 60-year-old coach-turned-media personality believes the new House v. NCAA settlement will only streamline a similar stepping-stone process for non-Power conference college football players.

During a lengthy discussion about the newly-created College Sports Commission, which will replace the NCAA as college athletics’ new enforcement arm and implement the House settlement’s financial rules, Meyer expects the new post-House world order will transform the Group of Five and other non-Power conferences into a “feeder system” for the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and the Pac-12 conferences.

“They become the feeder system for the big boys,” Meyer said on Wednesday’s episode of The Triple Option podcast with fellow co-hosts Mark Ingram and Rob Stone. “It’s still beautiful football. The MAC, I coached there for two years, it’s fantastic because everybody had the same players. So it was really a coaches league. Some leagues you have the best teams are so much better than the other teams. But what happens (now) … the reality is you’re going to develop a player and he’s going to leave.”

If Meyer is ultimately correct, that certainly doesn’t bode well for the future of the Group of Five/non-Power Five conferences, especially for their long-term prosperity as a member of the College Football Playoff, which already limits non-Power programs to one team in the 12-team model. And based on the two leading 16-team formats being tossed around by the Power conferences, the divide between the have and have-nots in college football will only widen moving forward.

Urban Meyer believes the Big Ten has passed the SEC

During his career as a head coach, Urban Meyer coached all over. That included with the Florida Gators in the SEC and the Ohio State Buckeyes in the Big Ten. Now, as an analyst, he believes the Big Ten has passed the SEC as a football conference.

Meyer made an appearance on Another Dooley Noted Podcast. There, he argued that the Big Ten has passed the SEC. At least, he believes the top of the conference has done so, even if it doesn’t have the same kind of depth.

“Well, you know what the SEC’s done? It’s raised the level,” Urban Meyer said. “But the Big Ten has passed the SEC at the upper part. If you would have told me that 10 years ago, I would’ve said it’s not even close. Because it’s not.”

The Big Ten has won the last two national championships, with Michigan and Ohio State going home with titles. This past season, the first year of the expanded College Football Playoff, the Big Ten got four teams in compared to only three SEC teams. That’s after a run where the SEC won five out of six national championships from 2017 through 2022.

For his part, Urban Meyer got to Ohio State in 2012 and coached the Buckeyes through 2018. Along the way, he won a national championship and likes to think that he helped change the Big Ten’s approach at the top.

“When I first got to the Big Ten, even Shelley said, ‘What in the world? This is a slow man’s game up here,’ and I like to think that the Buckeyes really changed that. Then everyone else started investing in their schools,” Meyer said. “And started recruiting the best player, not just the footprint. As a result, the Wolverine team two years ago was one of the best teams I’ve seen. The Buckeyes team this year is one of the best I’ve ever seen. You’re seeing Penn State, and some of these teams have great success.”

— On3’s Dan Morrison contributed to this report.