Urban Meyer has had a rough go at it recently as a head coach and has even said that the door is now closed on his coaching career (he has said that before though).
His most recent run as the HC of the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars went horrendously, with multiple off-field and on-field (he kicked the team’s kicker) scandals and an end of the season record of 2 wins and 11 losses. The highly decorated head coach was hired by Jacksonville to reinvigorate a struggling franchise, and Meyer pretty much added fuel to the “tire-fire.”
If you follow the rule of leaving a place better than you found it, the former Ohio State and Florida football coach did the exact opposite. For college and professional football fans, it has been tough to watch the fall from grace that the former national-championship-winning coach has had.
However, during his times at the University of Florida and Ohio State University, he was regarded as one of the best coaching minds in the game. He is in a select group of coaches who have led two different universities to national championships (2006 & 2008 at Florida, 2014 at Ohio State), so he clearly has a knack for success, despite his most recent NFL coaching job ending after just one season.
A recent soundbite from Urban Meyer speaking of his successful coaching days at Ohio State revealed a very shocking detail about his approach to the schools rivalry with the University of Michigan.
Nicknamed “The Game,” Ohio State and Michigan face off every year, and though most of the matchups have been increasingly competitive in recent years, Meyer absolutely owned the rivalry while he was at THE Ohio State University.
He went 7 and 0 playing against the Wolverines during his tenure as the head coach at OSU, and he revealed why that might’ve been the case by saying this:
“I’m not sure there’s anybody that’s respected that rivalry more than I have. I studied it, we had a little board everywhere about who they (Michigan) recruited, what they were doing offensively and defensively.
I had one coach, that’s all he did, is watch them year round.”
A coach at Ohio State University’s sole job was to just pay attention to what the Michigan Wolverines were doing.
That is crazy.
What does that job title look like on a resume? There are always arguably too many coaches standing on the sideline with the teams, and I’ve always wondered why there were so many. Now it makes sense…
You have your head coach, offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, Michigan Game coordinator, Kentucky Game Coordinator, etc. Might seem a little excessive, but considering his undefeated record against the Wolverines, I guess there was a method to the madness.
Must not have worked though when he led the Jacksonville Jaguars to a 2 and 11 record and got caught in public with a woman (not his wife) displaying an excessive (and gross) amount of affection.
