Urban Meyer questions NCAA president Charlie Baker amid tampering controversies: 'What the hell are you doing?'

Since taking over as the NCAA president nearly three years ago, Charlie Baker has taken more than his fair share of slings and arrows from fans and lawyers alike. Baker’s brief tenure in Indianapolis has been complicated by legal battles, including last Summer’s House settlement that effectively ended the NCAA’s outdated “amateur” model in favor of a more professional one with the introduction of NIL and revenue-sharing with athletes.

Of course, those transformative changes have ushered in a chaotic, free-wheeling approach to roster building by some high-dollar programs, especially in college football, which has seen a sharp rise in tampering allegations in the last several years. Those activities came to a head last week when longtime Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney publicly accused Ole Miss and first-year head coach Pete Golding of “blatant tampering” after transfer linebacker Luke Ferrelli backed out of an agreement with the Tigers and transferred to the Rebels last Thursday.

That preceded this week’s controversial transfer of former Duke quarterback Darian Mensah to Miami on Tuesday. That move required Mensah and the Blue Devils to come to a legal resolution in order for the new Hurricanes QB to get out of his previously-signed two-year, $8 million deal with Duke following his transfer from Tulane last offseason.

During a discussion about the chaotic state of college football and whether the sport could use a long-discussed “commissioner,” former Florida and Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer dismissed the need for new leadership while calling out the ineffectual job of the NCAA’s current leader, Baker.

“They already started another commission (CSC), so now you have another enforcement arm that’s supposed to enforce NIL. … That’s not gonna work,” Meyer said in Wednesday’s episode of The Triple Option podcast. “You don’t need more rules, you don’t need more people, you need to enforce the rules (already in place). … I don’t think a commissioner without any power is going to do the same thing. You already have the president of the NCAA. So, you want another person in charge that’s not going to do anything?

“Can we get the president of the NCAA on here and say, ‘What the hell are you doing?’” Meyer continued. “I would love to ask him, just say, ‘Hey, I have a lot of respect and everything, but what are you going to do?’ Can you imagine that answer?”

Baker — a former politician — has spent the better part of the past two years campaigning Congress to give the NCAA anti-trust protection from the litany of lawsuits that have led to many of the aforementioned changes to college athletics. But partisan disputes and dueling legislation have rendered those efforts fruitless, leaving college athletics no closer to a resolution on its biggest issues.