Urban Meyer has only been at Ohio State for one season, and he already has the attention of several coaches from the SEC, namely Will Muschamp and Nick Saban.
OSU has not officially beaten an SEC team in a bowl game after its 2011 Sugar Bowl win was vacated.
But Meyer knows the SEC, has won SEC championships and knows what it takes to beat a top-flight SEC team.
The two coaches who have made mention of Meyer, albeit in equally condescending fashion, have intimate ties with Meyer's work in the past few years. Muschamp, of course, replaced Meyer after he resigned at Florida, and Saban coached against Meyer in consecutive SEC Championship Games.
Muschamp opened SEC Media Days with a jab at Meyer's Buckeyes after Meyer turned in the Gators for two secondary recruiting violations:
"In both situations, we were turned in by Ohio. We didn't do anything wrong. The University of Florida didn't do anything wrong. And so we appreciated our friends from Ohio making sure we're compliant with NCAA rules. They certainly know a little bit about that subject."
This comes months after Saban made comments about Ohio State's weak conference opposition and how the 2012 Buckeyes would have struggled playing the Crimson Tide's schedule.
A lot of this seems like unprovoked banter, which means more eyes, especially from the South, will be on Meyer at Big Ten Media Days in Chicago on July 24-25.
But it's clear that Meyer is a threat to the dominance of the SEC in college football.
Ironically enough, Meyer started the run by blasting Ohio State 41-14 in the 2007 BCS National Championship Game. He has won a second title in a streak which now stands at seven straight titles.
He seems like the most capable candidate at the moment of ending the streak.
It may not happen this year, even though the Buckeyes are among the favorites to bring home the final BCS Championship before college football institutes the four-team playoff.?But if anyone is going to end the streak, however, Meyer and the Buckeyes are among the favorites to do so.
And the SEC seems to recognize it.
College football has been a coach-dominated sport, with the men wearing headsets being the personalities and faces of their respective programs.
Meyer's personality is very SEC-like. He's an in-your-face type of coach with an aggressive attitude and brutal honesty at times.
It can rub a lot of coaches the wrong way and it's spread outside of the conference, namely to his biggest coaching rival and his successor.
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Follow me on Twitter @bielik_tim for the latest college football news and updates.
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