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It's nice to see Urban Meyer making new friends.

At Wisconsin on Wednesday, Bret Bielema held a signing day press conference. The name Kyle Dodson came up.

Dodson is a massive offensive lineman from Cleveland who committed to Wisconsin last summer. Then Meyer took over at Ohio State. Now Dodson is a Buckeye.

"There are a few things that happened early on that I made people aware of that I didn't want to see in this league, that I had seen take place in other leagues," the Badger coach said. "Other recruiting tactics, other recruiting practices that are illegal."

Illegal? Whoa.

"I ... actually reached out to Coach Meyer and shared my thoughts and concerns with him," Bielema said. "The situation got rectified."

Those comments came two days after Michigan State's defensive coordinator took a shot at Meyer.

Pat Narduzzi — quite the salesman himself — told a luncheon crowd in Canton, Ohio, that Mark Dantonio had a gentleman's agreement with former OSU coach Jim Tressel. If a recruit committed to Michigan State, Ohio State would call off the dogs, and vice versa.

The Spartans had a verbal commitment from Canton defensive end Se'Von Pittman. Until December, when Meyer flipped him to Ohio State.

"It sets a tone and starts a recruiting rivalry," Narduzzi told the Canton Repository. "I guess it's fair game. You don't want it to be that way, but that's how it is."

Meyer's two-month recruiting surge is the talk of college football. He didn't just salvage Ohio State's class after a tumultuous year. He leapfrogged every Big Ten team to grab a top-five recruiting class nationally.

Tressel didn't exactly struggle for talent. But Meyer is more charismatic. More ruthless.

Michigan appears ready and willing to compete — Brady Hoke has a ton of momentum after an 11-win season and just signed the nation's eighth-best class, according to 247Sports. But where does that leave Wisconsin and Michigan State and Iowa?

And Nebraska?

Watching Ohio State and Michigan compile top classes is a cold reminder of the traditional challenges facing NU. This is starting to feel like the Big 12 all over again, when Texas and Oklahoma ruled signing day.

See if this sounds familiar ...

The conference's biggest and richest football program sits in the capital city of a huge, football-crazy state.

Its team budget exceeds the GDP of Third World countries. Its national media attention rivals Justin Bieber. Within a short drive from campus, there's a dozen high school seniors who will eventually play in the NFL.

And the coach, well, he's so charming he could sell scuba gear in the Sahara.

Across the northern border, sits another elite program — top three all time in wins. The coach there, an Ohio native, isn't too shabby himself — and he loves a good recruiting scrum. Nebraska is 1,000 miles away, trying to keep up.

At least in the Big 12, the Huskers had one division all to themselves. They weren't going to suffer many losses to KU and Mizzou — on the scoreboard or in recruiting.

Even if they didn't have talent comparable to Texas and Oklahoma, they could get to the conference championship game without much fuss. Now, for the first time, Nebraska has a recruiting heavyweight in its division.

Unlike Ohio State, Michigan's hay was in the barn early: Hoke had 20 commitments before Labor Day. While Meyer was angering colleagues, the Michigan Man was working on next year's class.

Recruiting rankings don't necessarily translate to championships (see: Callahan, Bill). But the folks in Columbus and Ann Arbor, after being largely irrelevant from the Big Ten race in 2011, are regaining their swagger. Nobody has more than Meyer.

Check out these quotes in a recent SI.com story:

From a Pennsylvania high school coach, whose star defensive end signed with Ohio State: "He's a relentless recruiter. I mean he is relentless. When Urban puts his mind to it that he wants a kid, he doesn't break the rules, but he's going to pull out all the stops."

From the father of a Buckeye recruit: "I haven't seen anything quite like the Urban Meyer brand ... I think he'll be a recruiting force across the nation. He is truly persuasive."

Nebraska's staff didn't cross paths much with Meyer this recruiting season. The Husker class was small, and Meyer got a late start. The next 12 months will be different.

Next February, NU will likely sign a large class. One of Bo Pelini's target areas will be the Big Ten recruiting hotbed, the place Meyer and Hoke harvested a grand total of 25 recruits in 2012.

Ohio. Hey, doesn't Bo have old friends there?

He'll need 'em.

Contact the writer:

402-649-1461, dirk.chatelain@owh.com
twitter.com/dirkchatelain

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