Anger at Departed Football Coaches

In the football realm, sometimes fans can get more than a little hot under the collar when their team's head coach leaves them for "greener pastures", especially when the result seems to be the collapse of their own team.  Yet the reality doesn't always conform to this formula.  Nick Saban did ruin the Miami Dolphins following his two-year stint there after he insisted on and  received essentially complete managerial control over the team's personnel and operations and then suddenly abandoned his commitment to them to accept wealth and fame at the University of Alabama.  Dolphins fans, including me, felt betrayed and angry at him for his actions...although truth be told, I have greater axes to grind about injustices in my life than with this sort of vicarious grievance.  On the other hand, Saban had angered LSU fans just a couple of years earlier when he left them to coach for the Dolphins.  But there are a couple of important differences with LSU: he had brought them a national championship during his tenure there and he left the team essentially intact and strong...and they won two more championships under his successor Les Miles after he left.  But now I hear that LSU fans are angry because he left Miami to work for their divisional rival Alabama.  Well, Florida coach Steve Spurrier, who brought the school unprecedented gridiron success during his 12-year coaching era, has continued to enjoy enduring good feelings in the community not only after he left the Gators to try NFL coaching, but even after he got a job coaching OUR divisional rival South Carolina.  That's all good and fine, but what I don't get is the animosity around Gainesville directed at former coach Urban Meyer.

All Urban Meyer did during his six-year run at UF was to win TWO national championships and give the school a very strong edge in recruitment nationwide over others.  Toward the end of his time here, he had some undisclosed personal health issues that interfered with his final season.  After leaving Florida, Meyer evidently was able enough to handle those personal issues and, after a brief time as a competent television sports analyst, was ready to take on the Ohio State head coaching position when it became available (because of scandal that sacked the previous coach).  Last year was his first season and he was very successful, taking his team to a 12-0 record in the face of probation that eliminated them from national championship consideration or a bowl game appearance.  I never heard anyone talk about how we're hoping that Urban does well in his new job and how we appreciate what he accomplished at Florida.  But I'll go ahead and say it, anyway.  I am glad that Urban Meyer is prospering in his new role at Ohio State.  I wish him success there, but since his school has such a powderpuff schedule this year and they could be rivals in the BCS determination as to who gets to eventually play for the national championship, I'm rooting for his team to unexpectedly lose at least a couple of games for the sake of improving Florida's very real prospects this year.  Nothing personal, Urban, but football is football: I'm rooting against Spurrier's team, too...