In the week leading up to the Ohio State Buckeyes’ annual rivalry game with the Michigan Wolverines, it’s commonplace for each team to take shots at one another.
While most of what’s said often simply becomes bulletin-board material, sometimes players take some of the smack talk personally. But Michigan may have much more incentive to go out on Saturday and make a statement after the rant former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer went on about the school recently.
During an appearance on “The Triple Option” podcast, Meyer not only threw shade at the Wolverines’ trio of quarterbacks, he questioned the leadership of the entire program after the departure of former head coach Jim Harbaugh, who left to take the Los Angeles Chargers job.
“Jim Harbaugh left on the 24th of January … everybody was talking about Harbaugh leaving, they had no idea who was going to become the new head coach,” Meyer said. “They’re going to lose 18 players to the draft — 18 starters. They had serious quarterback issues, and I was like, ‘How do you not fix that?’ Of the top 25 transfer portal quarterbacks, 23 of them were signed and done by the time the new head coach was named at the Wolverines.
“I’m going to talk about that on ‘Big Noon’ this weekend because, how does that happen? How does a national champion — one of the best teams in the last 20 years, that was a hell of a team. You know they’re going to leave. They were all seniors. You’re wondering, what happened?”
FOX Sports college football analyst Urban Meyer.
Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK
To Meyer’s point, Michigan lost quite a bit of talent off its 2024 national championship-winning team, including 13 draft picks — a group headlined by QB J.J. McCarthy, running back Blake Corum, wide receiver Roman Wilson, linebacker Junior Colson, defensive tackle Kris Jenkins and offensive lineman Zak Zinter, among others.
With McCarthy leaving, Michigan failed to find a suitable replacement.
The top QBs in the transfer portal signed elsewhere including Cam Ward (Miami), Will Howard (Ohio State), Aidan Chiles (Michigan State), Dillon Gabriel and Dante Moore (Oregon), and Riley Leonard (Notre Dame).
“The more research I’ve done, I know exactly what happened,” Meyer added. “If I’m a transfer quarterback, why would I go there? … I’m just trying to figure out how does a team go from one of the great teams of all-time [with] momentum on your side, obviously good academic school. All this stuff you can sell, and you’re left at the most important position where you’re just rolling guys through there? That’s just a little history of it.”
UM did sign four-star QB Jadyn Davis in is 2024 recruiting class, but he has been given zero opportunity to play this season despite poor performances from Davis Warren, Jack Tuttle and Alex Orji.
The Wolverines pulled off arguably the biggest win of this recruiting cycle in convincing five-star QB Bryce Underwood, the No. 1-ranked passer and overall recruit in the 2025 class by On3, 247 Sports and ESPN, to flip his commitment from LSU.
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