SEC North?

When Urban Meyer began his fantastically success current run at Ohio State he got in trouble with his fellow conference coaches for poaching recruits, something that the Big Ten always frowned upon. But Meyer was doing something he had always done, and is accepted throughout the nation, and the message was clear: the Buckeyes were going to do whatever it took to win and the rest of the conference had better do the same if it wanted to compete. Meyer has gone on to win 38 of 41 games with the Buckeyes with only one conference loss so the lesson is clear. Do whatever it takes to win and you will be lauded when you do win. And so now we sit in February and on signing day OSU pulled a receiver from Arkansas whose high school coach was fired for supposedly giving money to said receiver's family. There are rumors swirling that there is even more to the story but a lot of that could be due to hurt feelings on the part of the locals. Even so this is a huge red flag. Meanwhile the Buckeyes are over the limit when it comes to the number of scholarship players on the current roster and have been before--they have had SEC-like roster movement over the past few years--there is no player currently pointing fingers and accusing the program of tossing him aside. That said, it is dangerous to play the you-need-to-have-more-than-85-in-February game to overcome potential defections and injuries as there will be a year when you wake up August 1st with extra players who will have to be "cut". It is an awful product of over-signing and has been something that has dampened the SEC's recent success. Like with the Hill situation there does not seem to be anything clearly wrong being done by Meyer and his staff but there is some smoke. Winning can only cover up so much of this crap. Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh, meanwhile, just hired the mother of Stanford safety Wayne Lyons as director of player development. The offer has to be good enough to get the woman, a former teacher, to move from Florida to Ann Arbor. Her son, who was recruited by Harbaugh but never played for him, has wavered on what he plans to do next year. He has graduated and can transfer. This again may be much ado about nothing, but the impression be given is that Harbaugh is doing what he can tokeep up with Meyer. It just does not smell right.