PASADENA, Calif. — It’s often not easy to identify history-making events in advance.
The morning of a college football game, you don’t know if you’re about to watch an epic double-overtime classic like the 2003 Fiesta Bowl or a far less epic game like the 2007 Fiesta Bowl.
But it’s pretty safe to say that New Year’s Day 2019 in Pasadena is going to be a day Buckeye fans remember forever. And it’s certainly going to be one that Urban Meyer remembers for the rest of his life.
He was introduced as Ohio State’s head football coach at a press conference that started at 5:15 pm Eastern on November 28, 2011.
Tonight, 2,591 days later – almost to the minute – he will lead the Buckeyes out of the tunnel at the Rose Bowl for the final time.
It will mark the final act in the most successful era of Ohio State’s storied history.
The numbers are just staggering: 85 wins, 9 losses. Three Big Ten championships, championships in the Sugar Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Cotton Bowl, and a national title.
And it’s fitting that Meyer’s career as Ohio State’s coach will come to an end at the Rose Bowl.
The game and the stadium itself are iconic, especially to those who grew up watching the bright sunshine and colorful field give way to sunset on their TV on frigid midwestern New Year’s Days.
Meyer was one of those people.
“This has been a bucket list item since I started coaching,” Meyer said on New Year’s Eve. “Been close several times, including when I was a GA at Ohio State back in ’86. We came very close to coming to the Rose Bowl.
“Throughout my head coaching career, we had opportunities that I actually thought we were going, and then we ended up going to another bowl game.”
This year, after throttling Michigan 62-39 and winning the Big Ten Championship over Northwestern, it finally happened.
Meyer has talked about shutting out all distractions this week in the lead-up to the game. But he couldn’t completely silence that 10-year-old version of himself that spent New Year’s Day watching Archie Griffin play in the southern California sunshine.
Even after he grew up, all he wanted was to get through the gates for just a quick look. He stopped at the stadium in the early 1990s, while recruiting the Los Angeles area as a young assistant coach at Colorado State.
“I was going to try to sneak peek inside because I’ve heard about it for so many years and watched it. I was told to leave. And the guy was really rude, too,” Meyer said.
He finally got in for a brief look around two days ago.
“It was awesome. I wasn’t able to completely see the mountains, but I’m sure we’ll see that. I keep hearing that.”
Just after 5:00 Eastern this afternoon, he will run out of the tunnel and onto that field he has dreamed of.
And three or so hours later, if all goes according to plan, he might get carried off that field as well.
His mentor Earle Bruce had a similar moment in Ann Arbor in 1987; celebrated by players before kickoff, carried off the field for a final time after a famous win.
Today, it could be his turn.
It’s a day Urban Meyer has been waiting for since he was a little kid in Ohio, watching on TV.
