Alvarez: I'm fine with Meyer's recruiting

While Wisconsin head coach Bret Bielema was among the Big Ten coaches critical of new Ohio State coach Urban Meyer's recruiting methods, Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez did not echo his coach's complaints.

Earlier in the week on signing day, Bielema and others griped about certain "recruiting tactics" by Meyer and Bielema said some of the policies were "illegal." Michigan State's Mark Dantonio complained that Meyer was "unethical," and Meyer was accused of breaking an unwritten rule in the conference by recruiting players who had offered verbal commitments to other schools.

But Alvarez said he did not have a problem with Meyer's recruiting policies.

"Recruiting is recruiting until they sign," Alvarez told reporters. "If we had somebody who changed their mind and came to us, that's OK. Urban was very aggressive, but there is no pact within the conference not to continue to recruit. It's open season until they sign."

Wisconsin lost offensive lineman Kyle Dodson, a four-star recruit, to the Buckeyes while Michigan State lost defensive end Se'Von Pittman.

On signing day, Bielema told reporters "there are a few things that happened early on that I made people aware of that I didn't want to see in this league, that I had seen take place in other leagues. Other recruiting tactics, other recruiting practices that are illegal. I was very upfront and was very pointed to the fact, actually reached out to Coach Meyer and shared my thoughts and concerns with him. The situation got rectified."

Alvarez said he had no such conversations with anyone from Ohio State and cautioned that it was "dangerous to point fingers and make accusations. I actually think recruiting is tamer now than it was at one point in time."

Dodson and Pittman are both from Ohio and Meyer made no apologies for stepping up recruiting in his school's relative backyard.

"You've got a responsibility to your home state," Meyer told ESPN.com. "Absolutely. There is not a coach in America who's not going to do that, not going to check on his own state."

Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith issued a statement Friday defending Meyer and critiquing the critiques.

"I am disappointed that negative references have been made about our football coaches, and particularly head coach Urban Meyer regarding recruiting," Smith said in the statement. "In our league appropriate protocol, if you have concerns, is to share those concerns with your Athletic Director (AD). Then your AD will make the determination on the appropriate communication from that point forward. The ADs in our league are professionals and communicate with each other extremely well."

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