The Problems That Keep Urban Meyer Up at Night
Sports Illustrated
Robert Landers is easy to pick out as he wanders through the team dining hall inside Ohio State’s Woody Hayes Athletic Center. First you notice the splash of blond atop his afro. Then there’s the rest of his body—among the other Buckeye defensive linemen with towering frames and four- or five-star pedigrees, Landers looks more like a MAC player at just six feet and around 275 pounds. But what stands out most is the boisterous charm that radiates from the fourth-year junior everyone around here calls “BB”.
Landers, as he is quick to tell you, is the defensive line’s conscience and its spark, providing vocal leadership and levity in equal measure. He eats Fruit Roll-Ups during practice, occasionally trying to sneak one into head coach Urban Meyer’s pocket. He started dying his hair last year around mid-season. “Why? I have no clue,” he says. “I just woke up one day and said, ‘I’m about to do something different.’ This is my thing: I like to be serious, but I like to have fun.”
Landers is one of the most popular guys among Ohio State players and coaches. They know about his path to Ohio State, that his childhood favorite team didn’t offer him until a week after his senior season ended, when coaches from rival high schools in Dayton told Buckeyes assistants they needed to look at Landers, who had been committed to West Virginia for months.
They also know how he lost his father. Robert Landers Sr. worked in construction and was “one of the biggest, bubbliest, goofiest people on the planet,” his son says. BB thought his old man was invincible. But on Dec. 19, 2006, his mother got a call and came back home a couple of hours later with a blank look on her face. BB was 10. The police never found the shooter.
