Off Campus: Meyer leaves Penn State at the altar

After Penn State names its next head football coach - and we're guessing the next guy might need directions to State College from the Pennsylvania Turnpike - there might always be an asterisk attached to the hire.

*Could they have gotten Urban?

Urban Meyer, introduced Monday as Ohio State's coach - less than a year after leaving Florida for alleged health/spend more time with the family reasons - clearly surmised that expected NCAA sanctions in Columbus will be easier to deal with than a storm which isn't leaving State College any time soon. That may be one more piece of collateral damage at Penn State, even if it is minor in the scope of things.

Meyer, an Ohio native and once a Buckeyes graduate assistant, got the job he long coveted. If there were no scandal attached to either Ohio State or Penn State, we believe he'd have gone to Columbus. But we also very much believe those rumors of Meyer's interest in Penn State earlier this year were true, that he may have taken the job, that Ohio State's NCAA troubles suddenly gave the Nittany Lions a significant leg up as this season began. And he seemingly had Joe Paterno's blessing. (At least Paterno spoke highly of Meyer, which seemed no small factor a month ago.)

You can never be sure if Meyer would have taken the job. Maybe the money Ohio State reportedly is shelling out - $4 million a year for six years, plus bonuses - would have been higher than Penn State was willing to go for Meyer. But it hardly seems a coincidence that Meyer didn't signal his non-interest until after Paterno was fired. Talks with Ohio State apparently heated up from there. Meyer said Tuesday that if he didn't take the Buckeyes job, he wouldn't have coached.

The Buckeyes no doubt got the top football man on the open market. Believe it or not, Meyer may not have been the best man for the Penn State job right now despite his two national titles. Among other qualities, Penn State could use a man with more of a human touch, less of a my-way-or-the-highway type.

Assume the Penn State job is now a political appointment, that behind the scenes even Gov. Corbett may have to approve of the next football coach. We've seen a lot of names brought up - men such as Mississippi State's Dan Mullen, who graduated from Ursinus, and Northwestern's Pat Fitzgerald - but the obvious issue is, does a man who already has a pretty good job, consider leaving it for Penn State right now?

Obviously, Penn State needs a current head coach, somebody who can hit the ground running. The school also could use somebody capable of rallying the school's various constituencies, which includes a substantial bloc of alumni who still really want somebody with Penn State ties. We'd be stunned if that happens - especially after Al Golden just signed an extension at Miami - but a non-Penn Stater will have to be wary of this. We covered the on-going story of Rollie Massimino replacing Jerry Tarkanian at UNLV, how that had no chance of working since the knives were out for Massimino from the start.

If Penn State gets this wrong, empty seats at Beaver Stadium will follow. Athletic department finances will take a hit. Nobody could be so naïve to think that isn't a factor right now. The next coach still needs to be a CEO of a huge corporate enterprise. And Penn State only need look at Notre Dame over the last couple of decades to count how many times a school can hire the wrong man. Nebraska and Alabama got it wrong several times before those schools got it right.

In many ways, Penn State needs a Tom Bradley right now, a down-to-earth man people can relate to. But again, even as some have suggested Bradley could be retained for another year and see where things go from there, we'd be shocked if that were to happen.

There are other good football names being floated out there. Harvard's Tim Murphy, the successful head coach at Cincinnati before then - he dug the Bearcats program out from NCAA probation - makes a lot of sense from a lot of angles. The man can coach. Virginia head coach Mike London, another logical target, reportedly was approached about his interest and rebuffed Penn State.

The qualities needed in State College seem almost superhuman. To date, Urban Meyer hasn't been the type who gets statues built in his likeness. He goes in, he wins, he moves on.

That's what Penn State is missing out on. Urban Meyer going to Columbus obviously is far less important, by any measure, that whatever transpires in court as the Jerry Sandusky affair moves on. But it's not insignificant, and it's not unrelated.