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Urban Meyer praises new Ohio State President Kristina Johnson for leadership, bringing B1G football back

Dustin Schutte

By Dustin Schutte

Published:

Urban Meyer has a ton of respect for new Ohio State University President Kristina Johnson. He says her leadership was a key part of helping the B1G reinstate the college football season this fall.

Meyer was speaking with Big Ten Network on Wednesday morning, just moments after the conference announced it was reinstating the fall season. The decision came over a month after the B1G was the first Power 5 league to postpone the season on Aug. 11.

Johnson, who was a former student-athlete herself, provided a unique perspective on the situation, according to Meyer.

“As I was thinking about the decision that was just made, I actually spoke to the president at Ohio State, Dr. Kristina Johnson, and she’s a former student-athlete,” Meyer said. “And she made the comment to me — I’ll never forget this, because she played sports — the opportunity to compete with your teammates and compete with your teammates, she’d give it all up, everything she’s done to do it all over again.

“And so that’s why, in my opinion, why did this thing go down? Because you have leadership like that.”

Johnson just recently began her tenure as the new president at Ohio State, replacing Michael Drake. She was one of three university presidents/chancellors that did not want to postpone the season in the first place, along with Nebraska and Iowa.

She’s been pushing for a return to fall football. On Wednesday, it finally happened.

Dustin Schutte

Dustin grew up in the heart of Big Ten country and has been in sports media since 2010. He has been covering Big Ten football since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter: @SchutteCFB