WOW!

[Freddy_Ballgame]

Apparently, Urban Meyer has just resigned as football coach at Florida, citing health reasons! :eek:

[sdp]

Urban's got a hottie of a daughter.

[FrankEC]

Well, from what I'm hearing this morning, he's got ticker problems and the stress of being a college coach is making it worse. I'm sure it wasn't an easy decision, but if it's a choice between your job and your life, it probably makes it a little easier.

[The Rap]

It is sad but a sign of somepone who knows what his priorities should be. Bravo on a great career and a right decision.

[JanShan12]

Now he's changed his mind. He will only be taking a leave of absence and will be back when his health allows him.

[The Rap]

Well he explained that this is being done due to the urgings of the athletic director and others. Hope he isn't taking any undue risks.

[-Dr. Brave-]

Now they'll have to fire him for being too indecisive.

He also has a history of stress-related headaches.

[Freddy_Ballgame]

I want to see the media tear him limb from limb for being dishonest! Seriously, I had a discussion about Meyer's bail-out and my opinion was there had to be more than just health concerns to get him out. Those hyper-driven guys just don't bow to anything so trivial. He's a coach and his health would probably not improve much if he spent his days regretting the move. Besides, guys like Meyer are so driven and so obsessed with coaching that everything else comes in a distant second. Coach Bryant always said if he quit coaching he'd be dead in two weeks. It took closer to a month, but he died suddenly. Now that he's backpeddled on quitting, at least for a while, who else wonders if he did it to try and keep his latest recruiting class together? He's back, but now he's on an indefinite leave of absence?
I still believe there's a lot more behind this that we aren't privy to. I have heard from some folks closer to Florida's program that there have been scores of football players having scrapes with the local police without consequences. I still regard that type of stuff as rumor, but who knows? This is a peculiar episode...

[Andy G.]

If you're a coach planning on quitting, why announce it before the bowl game? Why not just wait until college football season had calmed down?

The answer is you're Urban Meyer, and you're a Media Whore.

[JanShan12]

I agree, Andy. The fact he has gone back and said he will just take a temporary leave of absence tells me he wasn't sure on his decision. Why announce it then? Just wait until after the bowl game, take some time to make the right decision, and then make your announcement.

[Freddy_Ballgame]

I heard it suggested that Meyer resigned just to get his team's attention, hoping to keep them from the same type of performance Alabama gave after losing the seemingly all-or-nothing SEC title game last year. As a well-seasoned Bama fan, I more or less expected them to mail it in against Utah after they lost their undefeated season and shot at the national title last season. Mail it in they did and Utah trashed them in the Sugar Bowl. I find this notion a rather huge stretch, but considering the flip-flop we've already seen, who knows?

[ScooterBrave]

Let me be the first to defend Meyer (as probably expected). From what I hear, it's almost entirely stress-related. Recruiting is going on now, along with bowl games, and I think Meyer felt it would have been dishonest to recruit players to come play for him and THEN quit. So he reacted quickly (perhaps too quickly) and spoke up. But it was NOT an easy decision; as you say, coaches with that kind of drive don't give up easy and so it was easy for pangs of doubt to creep in. When the AD suggested "why not just take a leave of absence" it was an opportunity to leave the bridge intact for Meyer.

[Wahoo]

Let me be the first to defend Meyer (as probably expected). From what I hear, it's almost entirely stress-related. Recruiting is going on now, along with bowl games, and I think Meyer felt it would have been dishonest to recruit players to come play for him and THEN quit. So he reacted quickly (perhaps too quickly) and spoke up. But it was NOT an easy decision; as you say, coaches with that kind of drive don't give up easy and so it was easy for pangs of doubt to creep in. When the AD suggested "why not just take a leave of absence" it was an opportunity to leave the bridge intact for Meyer.


I can't make up my mind how this is actually being played. When I first heard the news, I was thinking that there was no way he would be done for good, and that he would still coach again someday. And then we get this leave of absence business which makes sense with my original thought process, and then I learn that apparently this health issue has been present for sometime and that it was actually several weeks ago, and so I thought about the timing of it, and I, like Gilley, thought...man what a whore. Now, I think this whole leave of absence business is just a way to maintain their recruiting base for a while with Urban Meyer's name, until they can find a good replacement, at which point, he will officially resign.

[The Rap]

Well simply throw in his claim that the AD and others talked him into coming back.

[ScooterBrave]

Interviewed after the bowl game Meyer briefly mentioned that probably somewhere in the future he will be back.