I was sitting with my parents & aunt on Saturday night, discussing all the knee-jerk reactions the airline industry was already having to the attempted terrorist attack on the NWA flight in Detroit (which deserves a complete post of its own), when I looked to my phone & saw a new AP news alert text message out of Gainesville, FL "Urban Meyer is stepping down as coach of the University of Florida football team." I did a double, or possibly quadruple take on this text, and quickly switched to my ESPN text feed, to see that they had already posted two messages about Coach Meyer's decision. I'm only slightly exaggerating when I say that I would’ve been less surprised to see a leprechaun next to a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
I have always been a fan of both Florida St. & Florida football. I realize if I lived in Florida, that this could get me killed, but as a Minnesota resident, I felt I had the right to cheer for both (behind my favorite hometown Gophers, of course). Florida St. was usually my favorite of the two, especially when former Cretin Derham Hall QB Chris Weinke was there, even though the Gators were my favorite basketball team of the two (still bummed that Teddy Dupay & company did not pull out the 2000 Championship over Michigan St., but just reaching the finals helped me win multiple March Madness pools). That shifted when Urban Meyer arrived in Gainesville. Being a fan of the underdog, I was quite excited about Utah’s big BCS win (see the next paragraph), which somehow led to me becoming a big fan of a dynasty. Go figure. Tim Tebow’s arrival merely cemented the Gators position as 2nd on my list of teams, ahead of the Seminoles, but Urban Meyer is why they would stay in the spot for me next year & beyond.
This is the same Urban Meyer, who brought an undefeated Utah Utes team to a BCS bowl game, in his 4th year of being a head coach of college football (2nd year at Utah following 2 years at Bowling Green). Utah is in the Mountain West conference, which makes them an outsider in the BCS conference party. Lead by QB Alex Smith & Meyer’s spread offense, the Utes pounded the Pitt Panthers (out of the BCS member Big East conference) to win the Fiesta Bowl & finish their season with no losses on their record, becoming the first non-BCS team to win one of these bowls. They joined Auburn & Boise St. as three teams undefeated before the bowl games that had no chance to compete for a National Championship, but that would take a few books to write about, not just a blog entry. (USC ended the 2004 season as the “National Champion” with their crushing of Oklahoma, and Boise St. lose their bowl game, leaving Utah, Auburn & USC as the only teams with no blemishes/e)
The once feared Florida Gators had been stumbling (especially by their standards) since legendary Coach Steve Spurrier had stepped down (and been humbled in the NFL), being replaced by Ron Zook, whose qualifications included something like being a high school gym teacher, if I remember correctly. The Gators parted ways with Zook after the end of the 2004 bowl season (which is actually in early 2005, which sometimes gets confusing), and courted the hot young Urban Meyer to move east to Gainesville. Meyer was barely 41 yrs old by the time he coached his first Gator football game, but he showed that age was not what mattered for coaching success, nor was a lot of time as a Division I head coach. The Gators finished 9-3 in his first season there, ranked #12 in the AP poll. This still isn’t a successful season in the eyes of Florida fans, but after not even being in the AP poll at the end of the 2004 season (and falling behind rivals Georgia & Florida St., as well as in-state school Miami), this was a leap in the right direction.
The 2006 season showed everyone why Florida President Dr. Bernie Machen had wanted Urban Meyer at Florida (Dr. Machen was the Utah president from 1998-2003, so he was very familiar with Meyer already). Behind the solid, but not superstar, senior quarterback Chris Leak, the 12-1 Florida Gators became a surprise contestant in the BCS National Championship game vs. Ohio St. Many thought that the 12-1 Buckeyes should’ve been playing Louisville (12-1), LSU (11-2), USC (11-2), Michigan (12-1, but their only loss had been weeks earlier to Ohio St.) or even the underdog Boise St. Broncos, who once again stood at 13-0 before the bowls, but the BCS computers chose Florida. Oh, I forgot to mention that besides that senior QB Leak, there was a highly recruited freshman out of Nease High School’s football team (he was home schooled for classes), Tim Tebow, who came in to play QB for some plays, including goal-line situations where he could plow through the line, or try one of his never-seen-before jump passes. Tebow would go on to be a decent QB after Leak’s eligibility was exhausted.
9 ½ out of every 10 “experts” predicted that Ohio St. would crush the “overrated” Gators. Perhaps Boise St. set the stage for Florida the week before. In the Fiesta Bowl, taking place in the same Glendale, AZ stadium where the National Championship would soon be played, the Broncos somehow found a way to beat the mighty Oklahoma Sooners, who even had the return of their injured running back, Adrian Peterson. Boise outplayed the Sooners, then fell behind late, before some of the most incredible plays in college football led them to an improbable win. Many sports fans would agree that was one of the most fun games (in any sport) that they had ever witnessed. Perhaps it was not merely a coincidence that the underdog wearing blue & orange uniforms pulled out the win.
I was lucky enough to be in Florida for a work trip for that National Championship, wearing my blue Gators sweatshirt as I watched the game with my co-workers from our hotel bar. If I believed in gambling of any sort, I might have placed a $5 online bet for the Gators to win, which might have paid out a whopping $20…if I’d ever done that sort of thing. After all the talk about if Florida even belonged in this game, they left everybody with the impression that perhaps Ohio St. didn’t belong in that game. As I recall, Buckeyes kick returner/wr Ted Ginn ran the opening kickoff back for a TD (and injured his foot in the celebration), but Florida didn’t blink, and just set out from there to win the game & finish #1. As a side note, this championship was sandwiched nicely between Billy Donovan’s men’s basketball team winning back-to-back National Championships. It certainly was good to be a Gator!
To avoid turning this into a full book, I’ll skip the play-by-play of the following seasons, but Urban Meyer definitely made his mark in college football. Sophomore QB Tim Tebow won the 2007 Heisman Trophy, becoming the first sophomore to win the award, and later became the first player to finish in the top 5 in Heisman voting in 3 different seasons. Urban Meyer has just had a standing flight to New York every year lately for the Heisman Trophy ceremony. They only finished the 2007 season as the #13 team, but they bounced back rather nicely in 2008, winning the National Championship over Oklahoma. This championship was part of an amazing 22-game win streak, started after Tim Tebow’s “Promise” following the loss to Ole Miss (“I’m sorry…I promise you one thing…you will never see a team play harder than we will play the rest of this season. God bless.”) Along with being a fantastic Head Coach & Quarterback combination, Urban Meyer & Tim Tebow had possibly the best bromance in the country! Perhaps this could be explored in a later blog as well.
Unfortunately for Gator fans, that 22-game win streak came to an end a few weeks ago in the SEC championship game vs. Alabama, relegating the Gators to the Sugar Bowl, rather than the storybook ending of Tim Tebow riding off into the sunset after a 3rd National Championship. But while everyone knew that the Sugar Bowl would be the send-off of Tebow, no one thought it would be the last college football game for Urban Meyer. Sure, there were people who thought Urban (named for Pope Urban) would take the Notre Dame job, but he’d turned it down once before, and I had no concerns about that. I had no doubt that the Gators would re-load again next year, even if Coach Meyer was going through Tebow withdrawal (something I am trying to prepare for as well).
We have heard that Meyer has health issues, and wants to spend more time with his family, and while it is not life-threatening, the 27 hr a day/8 day a week head coach of football job, is one that provides enough stress to continually put his health at risk. So the man with 2 National Champions (& 3 BCS bowl game wins, hopefully 4 soon), winner of 6 different National Coach of the year awards in 2003 & 2004, and just named Sporting News Magazine’s Coach of the Decade, will be retiring now, at age 45. After the shock has gone away, I will just miss Urban Meyer being a part of college football. I am glad to see him putting his health, faith & family first though, as all too often, we sacrifice all of the above for the job, and somehow the job never shows the same dedication to us when the situation changes. His college-student daughter has already commented that she will be happy to get her daddy back. I wish him & his family nothing but the best, as he goes through this healing process, which will be both physically & mentally difficult. I have a feeling his players might be a little extra inspired for his final game on January 1, against the Cincinnati Bearcats, who already lost their head coach to Notre Dame. Go Gators!
Posts
When fans look at the ticker for news, they look for something that piqued their interest when they expect a transaction or something else. Most times, it's expected. This one is what you called news.
ReplyDeleteWhen I looked at the news in a sportswriter's Twitter account, I was shocked, and like you, I had to double-check to make sure I was not fooled. That's what shocked me.
His departure is not good for college football. Not only he can coach, but he makes a difference with young men. He ran a clean program overall.
I expect Urban to eventually come back once his health is in order. I don't see him leaving the game for good. He is still young. I bet he lands at Ohio State. For one thing, he is from there. Second of all, he knows the program well. Finally, I know Buckeye fans are getting tired of Tressel's offense and his inability to win in bowl games against elite teams. Meyer solves all of that. As a Buckeye hater, it would bother me if this happens.
I know you are going to laugh at my choice for next Gators coach, but hear me out.
I say hire Rich Rodriguz. The guy can coach. Look at what he did at West Virginia. He struggled at Michigan, but even then, he did good with what he worked with. He knows the spread offense, and he knows how to recruit Florida.
Charlie Strong (my choice to replace Mason at Minnesota) and Dan Mullen are learning at their jobs as head coach so they should not be an option. Bob Stoops is overrated. I like Kyle Whittingham and Chris Peterson, but Florida is such a high-pressure cooker that it would overwhelm those two who never coached a marquee program before.
Rodriguez has the personality and pedigree to get it done.