Urban Meyer and Notre Dame

With Notre Dame once again having a mediocre season at 6-5, talk is heating up about an impending head football coach vacancy up there in South Bend, with Charlie Weis on the way out after a string of disappointing seasons. And talk is also heating up about the possibility that Florida head coach Urban Meyer will step in to replace Weis.

Before coming to UF, Meyer has described coaching at Notre Dame, where he was previously an assistant coach for five years, as his "dream job". But he has become very comfortable here in Gainesville and has accomplished everything he would have wanted to at Notre Dame, particularly two national championships in four seasons and possibly a third this year. He can recruit more easily in the high schools of Florida and the South at large, and he doesn't have to overcome the stringent academic standards that Notre Dame has to bring in players who may have had enough difficulty just passing high school. Meyer is almost idolized in the Gainesville area, something that I have already written disturbs me to no end. If he went to Notre Dame, then winning the national championship occasionally and competing for it every season would be the minimum expectation among their fans. Of course, give Meyer a string of three or four seasons with three or four losses per season at UF and see much longer he would remain idolized here in Gainesville.

Urban Meyer has consistently and firmly denied rumors that he would be interested in coaching at Notre Dame, and has reiterated that he is very happy at the University of Florida. The only problem with that is that Alabama head coach Nick Saban was saying the same things while coaching the Miami Dolphins when the Alabama job became available. And once Alabama made him an "offer he couldn't refuse", Saban reneged on his commitment to the Dolphins and jumped over to Alabama. Meyer has "jumped ship" before, most recently leaving Utah for Florida following only his second season of coaching for them, after recruiting players there who believed that he would be with them for their college careers.

For me, I think Urban Meyer is a good coach with essentially no sense of humor, at least as far as it relates to him or his team. This whole mindset around here that it is somehow offensive to criticize Meyer, Tim Tebow, or any other UF player or coach is offensive in itself to me. I would rather have a less successful coach and a team to follow that had moderately successful seasons than a coach and team that are EXPECTED to win every game they play (and by large point margins at that). So Meyer is welcome to jump ship, as far as I'm concerned. Whether he does or not, I'll still root for the Gators. But it wouldn't hurt my feelings if he left, either. After all, Nick Saban has already conditioned me in this area!