Urban Meyer may be the most polarizing college football coach in America. Winning national titles will do that to you.
Winning while having a boatload of your players getting arrested (25 at Florida, 8 at Ohio State thus far, here’s the complete list) will do that to you even faster. Urban Meyer certainly has his detractors. But he has his vocal supporters too. Given what we heard from Rolling Stone magazine today, and given the information they plan to reveal, you might have a lot less Urban Meyer supporters and a lot more Urban Meyer detractors in this world soon.
At Big Ten Media Day, 12/14 questions Meyer faced from the media were about crimes, serious off-the-field issues, sanctions and that sort of thing. Again I ask you, what was wrong with the two guys who asked Urban about football?
Rolling Stone just dropped a teaser for its upcoming Aaron Hernandez story.
The major plot points are helpfully bullet-pointed by RS. Some of the big ones:
• Hernandez was a heavy user of angel dust, and had become so paranoid over the last year that he carried a gun wherever he went.
• [Mother] Terri allegedly cheated on [father] Dennis before his death with a violent drug dealer named Jeffrey Cummings, then married Cummings after Dennis died and moved him into the house she shared with Aaron.
• In college his coach (then-University of Florida head coach Urban Meyer) may have helped cover up failed drug tests, along with two violent incidents — an assault and a drive-by shootout outside a local bar.
“May have”
Huh??
RS, take a stance here! Unless this will be to Urban Meyer what Jenn Sterger was to Brett Favre. Meaning it’s just the teaser, the sparks before the flame. Like what Deadspin did with that specific story, giving us the scraps a few weeks before dishing out the meat and potatoes. And I really shouldn’t compare Urban Meyer potentially covering up Aaron Hernandez to Sterger and the ole fun-slinger with some naughty pics.
Because this is serious stuff.
Potentially covering up the crimes and drug tests of a future alleged murderer? Rolling Stone wouldn’t dare bring up anything remotely close to that uless they have the smoking gun. Otherwise, it has libel suit written all over it.
And if you wondered why Urban Meyer was initially silent on Hernandez for so long, well….
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. An analyst for 95.7 The Fan, he also writes on Chicago sports media for Chicago Now. President Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)