With the hiring of Jim Harbaugh combined with Sugar Bowl win of the Ohio State Buckeyes over Alabama, the Big Ten Conference and its powerful commissioner Jim Delany are living large with a future that looks as if it has unlimited appeal. A big reason for the resurgence of the Big Ten is because of coaching. With the arrival of Harbaugh, the Big Ten East Division has become perhaps the best in the country when it comes to dynamic and powerful coaching personalities.
Urban Meyer of Ohio State, Mark Dantonio of Michigan State, James Franklin of Penn State, and Harbaugh will make for epic and intense rivalries both on the field and in recruiting. It also gives the Big Ten much needed national cache and a bona fide shot at overtaking the Southeastern Conference and Pac 12 Conference as the best in the land.
Urban Renewal
Love him or hate him, the fact remains that when Ohio State hired Meyer as head coach, the dynamics of the Big Ten began to change. Meyer came from the demanding SEC and immediately improved Ohio State’s recruiting to a championship level, which has forced the rest of the Big Ten to adapt or get left behind. Meyer has made the first ever College Football Playoff Championship Game after beating No. 1 Alabama with a third string QB in Cardale Jones. What else really needs to be said as to his coaching prowess?
Determined Dantonio
Dantonio inherited one of the most inconsistent, undisciplined, and underachieving programs in college football when he arrived in East Lansing in 2007. He has built a program that is now a perennial top ten in the nation power with a brutal defense that consistently ranks as among the best in the country.
Michigan State’s stirring 42-41 comeback win over Baylor in the Cotton Bowl in which they rallied from a 34-14 third quarter deficit would never have been possible before Dantonio’s arrival, when Spartan teams folded like a house of cards in the face of adversity. Michigan State takes three star recruits and then develops them into five star players that have grit and character as evidenced at the Cotton Bowl.
Franklin Free and Clear at Penn State
Franklin had a successful first year at Penn State with a 7-6 record after their 31-30 comeback win over Boston College in the Pinstripe Bowl. Better yet the Nittany Lions were cleared of all NCAA sanctions this past fall and are now going to be able to recruit on an equal footing with other national powers.
Franklin made his name at Vanderbilt where he was the most successful coach in Commodores history. Known at academically elite Vandy as a recruiting machine, Franklin did the unthinkable in making Vanderbilt a competitive bowl team in the SEC at the height of the conference’s glory as the best league in the land. In the fertile recruiting ground of Pennsylvania, Franklin should have the Nittany Lions back on the national stage in short order. Franklin has an unmatched charisma that works wonders on the recruiting trail.
Michigan’s Recruiting Machine
And then there is Harbaugh. Much like Franklin, Harbaugh made his fame at an elite academic private school, Stanford, which had posted just one win in the season prior to his arrival. When Harbaugh left Stanford, the Cardinal ranked fourth in the nation and had become an established national power. Harbaugh then turned around the San Francisco 49ers of the NFL with three straight berths in the NFC Championship Game and a Super Bowl appearance.
Harbaugh now has the credibility of a successful NFL run, coupled with the unlimited resources of Michigan, to restore the glory of the nation’s winningest program in history. Not only is Harbaugh a master motivator and top notch recruiter, he is also one of the most brilliant minds in the game and a proven turnaround artist.
Nuclear Power
With Meyer, Dantonio, Franklin and Harbaugh the Big Ten East is an instant nuclear power of college football that is about to launch an epic era of high stakes drama. The long derided Big Ten Conference has now become the home of the best division of coaches that can be found anywhere.
