5 reasons Urban Meyer is the only answer to fix USC football

4. No other USC football coaching candidate has the pedigree of Urban Meyer

In the wake of Clay Helton being ousted, Yahoo!’s Pete Thamel released a preliminary list of possible replacements for USC football.

That list included the following 10 head coaching candidates: James Franklin (Penn State), Matt Campbell (Iowa State), Bill O’Brien (Alabama offensive coordinator), Luke Fickell (Cincinnati), P.J. Fleck (Minnesota), Mario Cristobal (Oregon), Greg Schiano (Rutgers), Tony Elliott (Clemson offensive coordinator), Chris Petersen (formerly Washington, Boise State), and Bob Stoops (formerly Oklahoma).

If you’ll notice anything about that list of candidates, only one of them (Stoops) has a National Championship on his résumé. Yes, they all have track records of program building, winning and so on, but Bohn said flat out in his statement that USC football was aimed at winning titles and none of those potential candidates have done that. Urban Meyer has — and he’s done it three times.

Everywhere Meyer has been, he’s produced extreme levels of success. He went 22-2 in two seasons at Utah, 65-15 over six years at Florida with two SEC and National Championships, and 83-9 over seven years at Ohio State with three Big Ten titles, a National Championship and only one year not in a New Year’s Six bowl.

This isn’t a head coach who’s all sizzle and no steak; Urban Meyer has produced results at the highest level. And for as good as the other candidates are, no one is in the ballpark of what Meyer has accomplished.