Zach Gelb Penn State Urban Meyer Edit via Liam McGuire
By Matt Yoder on

Zach Gelb is not going down without a fight on his report that Urban Meyer had discussions about replacing James Franklin at Penn State.

A few days ago, Gelb reported a story about Meyer and the Nittany Lions on his radio show that airs on Audacy, Sirius XM, and the Infinity Sports Network. Gelb said that Meyer had “great interest” in the Penn State job. However, the talks hit a roadblock when it came to the topic of NIL because the university did not believe he was equipped to lead the program in a name, image, and likeness era. It’s now been seven years since Meyer left Ohio State in 2018 after a successful tenure that saw him win a national championship and go 7-0 against arch rivals Michigan.

On Wednesday, Urban Meyer responded to Zach Gelb on his Triple Option podcast with Big Noon Kickoff colleagues Rob Stone and Mark Ingram.

Meyer largely laughed off the report and said that the meeting about Penn State didn’t happen. However, he did admit to meeting Pennsylvania Senator Dave McCormick, which also set off speculation about Meyer and the Penn State job.

“Who is the guy again? My phone started blowing up,” Meyer said, taking his first poke at Gelb. “Yea I give him credit. And he has two sources that said that I met with the Senator. We became friends. Rob you were there with Dave McCormick when we covered a Penn State game. And I stayed in touch with him, and we had breakfast in the Capitol, and we talked politics, Mark. And then there’s another one. He said, ‘the source says that I had conversations with Penn State about the NIL and I didn’t know how to handle the NIL or so. So first of all, that never happened.”

“How do we get the two sources on our show here? Can we invite the two sources? It just cracks me up when people sit at a whatever, make a story man,” Meyer added.

The denial quickly made its way back to Zach Gelb, who answered Meyer’s denial by standing firmly by his reporting on the conversations at Penn State.

“Well, I didn’t make it up. That’s number one,” Gelb said. “Number two, and I have a lot of respect for Urban Meyer, the coach, but what cracks me up is clearly you didn’t listen to my report. You didn’t. You talked about it, you gave your response, but you clearly didn’t hear it. Because I never mentioned the senator in any of that.”

“He had interest in the Penn State job and Penn State rejected him because of NIL. That’s what I was told. And I will stand by that. That is where the talks did break down. Urban was interested in the job. But when he has to say, ‘oh, how about you name your sources,’ then why have sources?” the host stated.

Gelb also had his own laugh about Meyer forgetting who he was after sharing lunch together at Super Bowl radio row. Oh, and he challenged Meyer to hook himself up to a lie detector test to deny his actual interest in the Penn State job.

“How about you come into studio, we’ll hook you up to a lie detector test, and I’ll ask you a simple question, were you ever interested in the Penn State job? Right? If it’s erroneous, if the report is ridiculous, you should be able to say I wasn’t interested and the lie detector test person should be able to say yea that’s right!”

Zach Gelb is supremely confident in his reporting. And honestly, it’s not hard to envision Urban Meyer at least kicking the tires on the Penn State job. And it would be sound for Penn State to kick the tires on one of the greatest coaches in college football history.

Of course, it wouldn’t look great for Meyer if it was indeed Penn State that passed first. But given his last coaching job in Jacksonville and how it ended in controversy in Columbus, any program would be taking a great risk. And he can stick to his previous comments that he is truly done coaching.

But if you’re old enough to remember Urban Meyer denying reports about taking the Ohio State job just days before he took the Ohio State job while at ESPN, then this whole sequence of events seems oddly familiar.

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