Note to Dan Patrick: You were wrong

It is near the end of the semester, and I am very busy with campus matters, but I thought I'd take a short break from my rankings and prognostications to provide a quick correction to viewers and listeners of THE DAN PATRICK SHOW.

Now, before I begin, let me say that I admire Dan Patrick.  In the age when so many national sportscasters try to make themselves seem like experts, and that everything they say should be taken as the "voice of God," Dan Patrick has gone out of his way to distinguish his own personal opinion from any facts that he states.  If he is simply repeating something someone else said, something he has not verified, he states the source.  He also admits he is not an expert, and relies on (and often calls upon during the broadcast) his team of fact-checkers.  They will often let him know when he made an error, which Dan will quickly announce on the program.  So I know he is committed to the truth and to clarity.  That's why I'm sure he will appreciate this.

While I did not listen to all of his broadcast on Monday Nov 26th, I did listen to over an hour of it.  Three times during that broadcast he mentioned that Urban Meyer had brought "SEC style" of football to Ohio State.  The only problem with that statement is that the spread option used so effectively by Urban Meyer's team is NOT an SEC innovation.  Yes, it is practiced by many of the SEC teams NOW, but that's only because they adopted it when Meyer came to the SEC to coach at Florida.

Urban Meyer has been using the spread option at every school where he has been head coach.  He perfected this version of it when he was at Utah, long before Florida was even considering him to be their head coach.  When he came to Florida, SEC schools realized that they needed to defend against this thing.  After all, it was so successful at Utah because it was so hard to defend.  SEC schools studied the scheme so that they could simulate it during practice.  As they were learning it, they realized how great the scheme was.  The SEC was already focused on "quick strike" offenses that could dishearten their opponents.  This seemed to be the ideal upgrade to their current offenses.  Thus, many of the other SEC schools began to integrate the spread option scheme.

However, to call it the "SEC offense" is incorrect, and ignores the valuable contribution that Urban Meyer has brought to college football.  This version of the spread option was perfected by Meyer BEFORE he came to the SEC, and so if you want to name it after someone or a school, call it "Meyer's offense" or the "Utah offense."  Do not give the SEC credit for something that they copied, rather than actually created.