Michigan State is Urban Meyer's new Alabama

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COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Urban Meyer has been asked to relive 2009 time and again, but Saturday evening after a 17-14 loss to Michigan State, standing at a postgame news conference and looking nearly sick to his stomach, Meyer had to be reliving that season in body, mind and spirit, not just words.

Because he had just met his new Alabama again, and once again Mark Dansabantonio had ended his dreams.

To recap: In 2009, Meyer was defending a national championship for a second time after Florida's 2008 title. Undefeated and No. 1, the Gators lost to Alabama in the SEC Championship, Meyer's wife, Shelley, thought he was having a heart attack that night, he was diagnosed with other health issues, and Meyer weeks later resigned from Florida, then changed his mind and coached another year and then resigned in 2010.

It started with that Alabama loss, when Nick Saban, after Alabama lost to Florida in the 2008 SEC Championship, beat Meyer for the first time. It started when the undefeated season after the national title ended.

That's what Saturday night was again. National title, undefeated follow up, then the loss.

This time, it was Michigan State's Mark Dantonio moving to 2-2 against Meyer in their four years together in the Big Ten. Meyer is 46-2 against everyone else, 2-2 against that grinder from East Lansing.

The total score of those four games? 104 to 104.

The Spartans may be tougher than the Crimson Tide because they're in the same division as the Buckeyes, which wasn't the case with Florida and Alabama. But what the Gators and Crimson Tide learned in those two years is that the path to an SEC title went through them.

In the last three years, the Spartans and Buckeyes have certainly learned that about each other.

So before Meyer faces Michigan's Jim Harbaugh on the field for the first time next Saturday, he already has met his match in his new conference.

Here's what Meyer must do, or he'll be done in Columbus as well - handle Dantonio. Not on the field, but off.

He's going to lose to a coach that good sometimes, and the Buckeyes are going to lose to a team as good as Michigan State sometimes. You want a more competitive Big Ten? Be careful what you wish for, because you've got it.

Ohio State had won 23 straight games before Saturday. Ohio State had won 30 straight regular-season Big Ten games to start Meyer's Columbus career. Ohio State had won and won and won, until it lost.

So I wanted Meyer to say that. Before he left the postgame news conference, as dejected as we had ever seen him, as dejected as cold-pizza-eating Urban from the Michigan State loss in 2013, I wanted to see if he had that perspective in him.

Maybe the fans don't. Maybe the media doesn't. But if the coach in the moment after a crushing loss can't look at 48-4 and have immediate perspective, at least a smidge, he's not going to make it. He'll be done again.

"Nobody wins every single game," I asked Meyer. "You just had a 23-game winning streak. Do you have any perspective on this at the moment that this happens to every team at some point?

"Oh, you know, I've been down this road before, where you do good. I just love the group of guys down there. And we have to do better," Meyer said.

"Yeah, I do. I do. A lot of different perspective than maybe I had several years back.

"You lost a game, you're pissed off, you go do the best you can, go to work tomorrow.

"I did challenge the leaders, challenge our coaches that, once again, to run out of the tunnel first when you're - what you said, 23 or 30 or whatever it is win streak - it doesn't take a whole lot of courage to do that. It takes a lot of courage to show up Sunday ready to go beat a good Team Up North."

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