Why the NCAA Coaching Waiver for Ohio State Is Not a Big Deal
By
Thomas Hanlon
(Contributor) on December 10, 2011
You would think that The Ohio State University being granted a coaching waiver in the transition from the Luke Fickell coaching staff to the Urban Meyer era is a travesty from the way people are complaining about it.
For those that haven't heard, the NCAA has granted the Ohio State Buckeyes a waiver allowing them to have more coaches on staff than the current ten allowed by NCAA rules. This allows Urban Meyer to recruit for Ohio State since he will be taking over as active head coach after the Gator Bowl on January 2, 2012 and it allows him to start hiring his coaching staff.
Only seven coaches are allowed to be recruiting at any one time, and only ten coaches are allowed to be coaching on the sidelines or in the coaching box during a game. Meyer and his staff as they are hired are being added to the list of Ohio State coaches allowed to recruit. However, they will not be allowed to have any responsibilities coaching the current team on the field until after the Gator Bowl. Also, any coaches that Meyer hires as holdover from the current staff will be allowed to recruit as long as there isn't more than seven coaches recruiting. Those coaches will also be allowed to coach the current team in practice and in the bowl game. At this moment, the only current coach on Meyer's staff is interim head coach Luke Fickell.
Also, Meyer will only be able to recruit until the 19th of December when a "dead period" takes place until the 3rd of January. By the 3rd of January, he will be the acting head coach at Ohio State.
Also, this is a waiver that is granted to most schools who apply for it. It's not something special that has just been granted to Ohio State and not to any other school. However to get it, a school has to have one person as the current head coach (be it an interim head coach or they are letting the coach leaving coach the bowl game), and have agreed to terms on a contract with someone to be the head coach the following season.
Illinois has also requested the waiver and are expected get it. Gene Smith, the Athletic Director at Ohio State, was granted the same waiver when he was the AD at Arizona State, and doesn't see what the big deal is. ESPN reports that Smith said:
"We have only one coach who is not coaching - and that's coach Meyer," he said. "We don't have a whole new staff out there recruiting. Keep in mind, the (other) guys we have recruiting are also coaching."
NCAA spokeswoman Stacy Osburn has said the practice is "not all that rare." Here is a quote from her about it:
"The NCAA has certainly received similar waiver requests prior to the bowl season from universities that have recently experienced coaching staff changes," she said in an email to The Associated Press. "When granted, these waivers are temporary, typically lasting through the bowl game, and only provide relief from maximum number of coaches allowed to be employed by the school. To prevent competitive advantage, the university still cannot exceed the number of coaches allowed to recruit at any one time and the amount of coaches allowed on the sidelines remains the same."
University of Michigan head coach Brady Hoke on the waiver for Ohio State:
"It's different. That would be my reaction. I've never heard of it," he said. "Is that an advantage? Yeah, I think so."
I think Brady Hoke needs to do some research. When the school he is currently coaching for was transitioning between outgoing head coach Lloyd Carr and incoming head coach Rich Rodriguez (whom Brady Hoke replaced as head coach at Michigan), they applied for and were granted the exact same waiver.
However, when Hoke was replacing Rodriguez as head coach of Michigan, the Wolverines were not bowl eligible therefore this waiver did not apply to them, as their season was over.
I think the problem most fans and some coaches are having with this is the impact the hiring of Urban Meyer is having on Ohio State's recruiting for the 2012 class. Meyer has been on it's been rumored upwards of forty phone calls a day. Once it was announced that Meyer would be the new head coach in Columbus, Ohio and would be allowed to recruit, kids started contacting him immediately in hopes of Meyer being interested in them. Recruits that were not associated with Ohio State before the Urban Meyer hiring are now looking at Ohio State as a place they would like to play college football.
This isn't the fault of the NCAA granting a waiver to the Ohio State Buckeyes. Instead, it is the result of going from instability to stability in a coaching staff and hiring the best head coach available to take over the Ohio State football program.
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