One of Ashtabula County’s favorite sons came under some fire by a fellow coach on Sunday.

Urban Meyer, a 1982 St. John High School graduate and now the head coach of the University of Florida Gators, was criticized by Miami coach Randy Shannon, whose team bowed at Florida on Saturday night, 26-3.

Meyer sent his field-goal team onto the turf at the Swamp in the final 30 seconds to add three points to a 20-point lead.

It didn’t go over well with Shannon.

“I’ll just say this one statement,” Shannon said on Sunday. “Sometimes when you do things, and people see what type of person you really are, you turn a lot of people off. Now, whatever you want to get out of that, I won’t say it again. But it helped us. It helped us more than you’ll ever know.”

Whatever.

In this day and age, the way the system is set up, margin of victory plays a big part in how many poll voters judge a team. And considering the polls play a huge part in which teams play for the BCS national championship, well, you get the idea.

Considering it just happened to come against one of Florida’s intense state rivals — and whose players foolishly ran their mouths in the weeks leading up to the game — the bet here is Meyer would have scored another 50 or so points if he could.

Shannon seemed to imply some recruits from the Sunshine State were turned off by what he perceived to be piling it on.

To his credit, Meyer wouldn’t bite on Shannon’s bait.

“It was a great football game,” Meyer said. “Why don’t we talk about the players that played a great, hard-nosed football game and quit measuring up to worrying about Florida. I learned a long time ago just coach your team and take care of yourself. Special teams, offense and defense occupies all our time.

“So I’m good. We’ve got to move on.”

This brings to mind two recollections. The first comes only from stories heard and read.

In their national championship season of 1968, the Ohio State Buckeyes led visiting archrival Michigan late in the game, 42-14. The Buckeyes added a late final touchdown and, to the surprise of many, legendary coach Woody Hayes then had the Buckeyes go for two and converted to win the game, 50-14.

Lou Holtz, then an assistant on Hayes’ staff, has told a story for decades that many believe to be fact.

According to Holtz, Hayes was asked why he went for two.

“Because I couldn’t go for three!” Holtz said Hayes replied.

Accurate or not, those words came back to haunt Hayes and his team in 1969. Entering the Michigan game undefeated and headed for another possi-



ble national championship, the Wolverines stunned the Buckeyes at Michigan Stadium, 24-12.

(For the record, there is no record — none — of Hayes ever uttering those words after the 1968 game).

The second recollection comes from something one of the best teachers I ever had — the late Glenn Sutherin — said to me.

Then the Jefferson football coach, Sutherin’s Falcons played the first game ever played at what is now known as Falcon Pride Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 18, 1980. Jefferson was in its final season of playing its home games at Memorial Field — its home since 1946 — that fall. However, school officials wanted to play one game at the facility.

Unfortunately for Sutherin and his players, Jefferson officials chose that game to be the Southington game. The Wildcats were loaded and sported future NFL running back Rick Badanjek at tailback. The 5-foot-9, 195-pound Badanjek finished his four-year high school career with 5,350 yards.

One of the least classy coaches I’ve ever come across — Dave Wilson — chose to run it up that day, something he did as often as possible.

Wilson had the Wildcats pile it on that day, winning, 56-14. Despite the fact his team led, 21-0, with 1:40 to play in the first quarter, Wilson pounded on the Falcons with Badanjek.

Badanjek carried 20 times for 201 yards. He scored on touchdown runs of 32, 44 and 10 yards, threw a halfback pass for a 69-yard touchdown and ran a punt back 66 yards for another score.

After the game, Jeffersonians were looking for Wilson like the villagers did with Frankenstein. I could have sworn I saw some of them carrying pitchforks and torches.

I asked Sutherin, my American History teacher, about Wilson piling it on.

He put his arm around me and said, “Son, don’t worry about him. Last time I checked, it’s our job to stop the other team... not their job to stop themselves.”

Miami’s Shannon should do what he didn’t have his players do before they went to the Swamp — shut his mouth.

Not to mention, if any program deserves to have its collective face rubbed in the dirt its Miami, possessors perhaps the most maggot-infested track record in college football history.

Meyer is just playing by the rules. He didn’t make the system. All he did was what’s best for his program. In the dog-eat-dog world of big-time college football, that’s the way the game is played today.

A footnote to Wilson and Southington football: With Badanjek gone to junior college the next fall (he would later play two years at the University of Maryland before hooking up with the Washington Redskins), Wilson resigned after the 1980 season.

However, the coaches and players he piled on didn’t forget and after absorbing three annihilations in the next season, Southington chose to disband its 1981 squad — with seven games yet to be played — fearing to the well-being of its players, who were left to pay for what Wilson had done.



McCormack is the sports editor of the Star Beacon. Reach him at donmac@suite224.net.