A big mess at Florida
If there’s anything to learn from the Urban Meyer saga over the weekend, it’s this. You don’t want to be the coach who replaces Urban Meyer. And it’s not the Bear Bryant factor, as in, you don’t want to follow a legend. It’s the Frank Broyles factor, as in, you don’t want to follow a legend who is walking around campus rightfully thinking he still owns the place.
Meyer, the Florida football coach, said Saturday he was resigning after the Sugar Bowl, but Sunday he said he had reconsidered after a spirited practice with his team. At least one of those decisions is not well-considered. If doctors suggested Meyer step away from football, a Sunday morning practice shouldn’t deter him.
The plan now is for Meyer to step away from football after the Sugar Bowl, let offensive coordinator Steve Addazio run the program, then return next August. No reason why that couldn’t work.
But to me, the biggest flare of the weekend was Meyer’s attitude. Did you see his comments about the program, about when he had announced his resignation, his concern that Florida might bring in someone who would change the program?
Meyer gave ESPN an extended sit-down Sunday — Tom Rinaldi conducted a masterful interview — and Meyer seemed totally forthcoming about his failure to take care of his health and his family priorities, in the quest for football success. Really interesting stuff that every coach ought to watch.
But in terms of Florida’s football future, the most relevant theme was Meyer talking about no longer coaching the Gators.
“I was fearful we would turn it over to someone who would change our program,” Meyer said. “We do things a certain way.” If someone changed the Gator way, Meyer said, “I couldn’t live with that. That would destroy me.”
Meyer said he called UF athletic director Jeremy Foley from the sidelines of that Sunday morning practice and said they needed to talk. Meyer later told Foley, “We have to keep this boat headed in the right direction. How can we do this?”
And thus came the compromise of Addazio being interim head coach in the off-season. But the original plan, on Saturday night, was Meyer remaining at Florida in some kind of ceremonial status. Probably fund-raising for the president, would be my guess. Can you imagine what life would be like for the new football coach, unless it was Addazio or Dan Mullen or Charley Strong or someone from Meyer’s staff? Now we know why Bobby Bowden wasn’t named the interim coach.
Can you imagine Bob Stoops or Mike Shanahan working in that kind of environment? “We do things a certain way”? Holy Bo Schembechler. Who could enjoy working on that campus? Broyles’ final season coaching Arkansas was 1976, then he spent 31 more years as athletic director and keeping his thumb in the Razorback football pie. It makes for some bad karma. If something happens and Meyer indeed has to stay away, any coach with a good job already should pass on Florida.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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Comments
Keep the boat pointed in the right direction…huh? Now correct me if I’m wrong, but just recently I heard a piece where it stated University of Florida football players were cited with a total of 251 moving traffic violations just in the past year. Maybe keeping the Gators out of municipal court in Gainesville is what put Urban Meyer over the edge. Or, maybe the Gator Nation can’t come to terms with not being the headline story this post season and being nothing more than the fourth best bowl game on the bowl slate… at best an anecdote.
Very, very bizarre behavior from the Florida football program right now. What everyone in the college football community should be talking about right now is the impending national championship game showdown between unbeatens Alabama and Texas in Pasadena… or the meeting of unbeatens TCU and Boise in the Fiesta.
I would never make light of a person’s health concerns, but
this is all becoming excessively maudlin in a hurry.
If a coach has serious health concerns then that should be a very private manner and this should have been dealt with after all the teams had played their respective BCS bowl games. Life doesn’t begin and end with Florida Nation football. There was college football as we knew it before Urban Meyer went from Utah to Florida.
MJ
Berry, interesting take on the Urban saga. My take after reading your blog is that Meyer is a pretty good coach but he is no Knute Rockne, no Bud Wilkinson and no Barry Switzer. Right direction is hogwash. As soon as Little School Meyer can get rid of his narcissistic attitude he just might get healthier. Meyer needs to remember that he has only coached Big Time CFB 5 years and he is not the Chosen One.
Meyer knows he has 2 or three years of beat downs coming at the hands of Saban, Nutt, Richt and probably Kiffin. He couldn’t beat Bama this year even returning all 22 of his defensive two deep from last year and Tim Tebow.
This is nothing but drama queen at its finest. Must be something in the water in Gainesville…Billy Donovan now Meyer…maybe they can get Favre to join in?
31 arrests in 3 years…the whole program is a joke.
My question is why did Meyer originally decide to announce his retirement BEFORE the Sugar Bowl? Why couldn’t he and his family decide once the game was over what was best? There’s too much drama happening in Gainesville. Along with his identified health concerns, I think Urban is suffering from post-minus Tim Tebowitis.