Texas Football: Tom Herman fiercely dodging any Ohio State speculation

The college football world was turned on its head when Urban Meyer was placed on paid leave and Texas football’s Tom Herman got caught up in rumors.

Texas football steered completely clear of any discussion or speculation regarding the situation with Ohio State Buckeyes’ head football coach Urban Meyer. Within the past week, Meyer was placed on paid leave from Ohio State University and the speculation surrounding a potential replacement for him has already started.

It’s way too early to speculate anything beyond what  has already happened with Meyer and the Ohio State football program given the current public information. The entire reason that Meyer is in hot water at this point is his handling of previous domestic violence disputes on his coaching staff dating back to 2009 when he was still employed with the Florida Gators.

The backlash on Meyer is intense at this moment given the extent of the domestic violence issues in college and pro football now. An assistant coach of his at Florida and Ohio State, Zach Smith, was recently dismissed from his coaching position with the Buckeyes.

However, this all ties back to both the Big 12 and head Texas football coach Tom Herman through multiple avenues. As it pertains to the Longhorns, Herman used to be the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Ohio State under Meyer as a head coach. Herman coached at Ohio State before his first major head coaching position that came with the Houston Cougars.

Due to previous ties, some speculation came about that Herman could be a potential candidate for the Buckeyes if Meyer does not return from administrative leave. However, the first press conference of fall camp for Herman saw him clearly deny and dodge any comments or speculation regarding his ties with this particular situation and the Ohio State football program altogether.

The other ways that this situation impacts the Horns is that the team does face the TCU Horned Frogs in the Big 12 opener just one week after Gary Patterson’s squad faces Ohio State. And, Ohio State figured to play a major factor in the College Football Playoff picture in 2018.

Lastly, since the speculation started for the Ohio State coaching position if it were to open up, some candidate rumors were also likely to emerge. According to Sports Illustrated’s Andrew Perloff, Iowa State Cyclones head football coach Matt Campbell could be a frontrunner for the Ohio State job if it were to open up.

Any other distractions that came about for Ohio State, especially with a younger quarterback in Dwayne Haskins leading the way, just hurt the team’s preparation for the upcoming regular season.

For Texas, Herman has the right mindset to keep all rumors of this Ohio State situation away from his current program. Nothing has come about that would lead any fan to reasonably think that Herman is looking to leave the Texas football program.