Urban's Way

Urban Meyer, the Florida Gators, and His Plan to WinBy Martin, Buddy

St. Martin's Griffin

Copyright © 2009 Martin, Buddy
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780312604943
Chapter One
The Cul-de-Sac of Champions

Three men sat looking at each other in an empty University of Phoenix locker room, pondering the impact of what had just happened. Florida’s national championship football coach glanced up at his father, Bud, and his mentor Earle Bruce, digging deep for some profound declaration. Urban Meyer’s lifetime dream was now a reality, and the magnitude of the accomplishment began to seep into his consciousness.

All week long, Meyer had tried to trick himself into thinking his opponent was just another team in red and gray. Just once during practice, when he had heard the sound of the Ohio State band playing "Hang On Sloopy," it hit home so hard that he doubled-clutched his emotions at the realization that he was coaching against the The team.

Honestly, Urban’s biggest dream could never have been this big: a complete annihilation of The Ohio State, 41–14. The Ohio State of his boyhood affection, The Ohio State where he cut his coaching teeth, The Ohio State that had also once fired his mentor Earle Bruce, and, by the way, The No. 1 team in America.

The joy—even more so the relief—was making him feel almost giddy and light of body. "I’ve never felt that way in my life," Meyer said later. "It was like somebody had drilled holes in the bottoms of my feet and drained out all the pressure."

Football coaches rarely have time to stop and reflect on their success as it is unfolding. There is always the next season, next game, or next down to spoil the mood. But to night, Meyer would briefly suspend that obligation. The events of January 8, 2007, had set the college football galaxy on its ear. However, even if he was contemplating one tiny taste of gloating, his two companions would probably not have tolerated it.

Turning to the two men who always seemed to have the answers in his life, Meyer was hoping for some sort of affirmation when he proclaimed:

"And now I get to do this for fun. It’s over! We won the national championship!" Now that the monkey was finally off Urban’s back, it was time to celebrate, have some fun and enjoy coaching football the next season—wasn’t it?

To his credit, the no-nonsense, down-and-dirty, hard-boiled Earle Bruce didn’t laugh out loud. And since they weren’t the kind of guys given to breaking out in table-dancing or backflipping, the coldly logical Bruce and iconoclastic Bud Meyer merely smiled and nodded.

Bud says he was already thinking that his son should have been out recruiting for the next season. Nobody knows for sure what Earle was thinking, but Urban figures he was just being humored by his old boss. "Coach Bruce was probably looking at me and really thinking, ‘yeah, rrriight!’ " Urban would say.

Then—poof !—that elusive moment was gone. No champagne toasts. No victory laps. No ticker-tape parades. No flights to Bermuda to lie on the beach and toast the ultimate victory with little umbrella drinks. The next morning in Gainesville it was back to school, back to recruiting, and back to babysitting one hundred or so football players. Urban had to pinch himself to make sure this had really happened the night before.

Almost like a Blockbuster rental movie, Urban Meyer’s Marvelous Adventure was over and felt as if it were due back Wednesday at five.

The dream had come true, however, and was, indeed, truly remarkable.

This former over-the-top, semi-out-of-control, control freak had hit the college football lottery. All those years as an assistant coach siphoning off the knowledge from his bosses, squirreling it away in diary form, and then field-testing his pilfered ideas—all that had come together like Harry Potter magic.

If there was a football god, he was probably repaying Urban Meyer as a responsible caretaker of the game and for being straight up with his players and fellow coaches for twenty-one years. There was no extended warranty on the honeymoon because he was back to work coaching that next morning. Even if there was a new college football sheriff, he was going to have to run for reelection.

Bud and Earle knew that the afterglow would soon be dimmed. Not even they could have predicted the ensuing struggle for the Florida Gator coaches, players, and fans in the 2007 season.

The history of Florida’s incredible run in football and basketball programs, however, was still being written.

Coming when it did—just four years after Steve Spurrier had suddenly departed and the football program had taken a dip under Ron Zook—this national championship and football resurgence would revitalize the Gator Nation. It also validated the choice of Director of Athletics Jeremy Foley and President Bernie Machen, who had received some criticism for taking the guy from Utah over the return of the favorite son, Steve Spurrier. Now they looked like geniuses.

Schools such as Notre Dame suddenly had Urban Meyer envy. In just two years at Florida—only his sixth overall as head coach—the guy with the "gimmicky" offense that critics said wouldn’t fl y in the Southeastern Conference had possession of the crystal football. But was he a onetime wonder, or had Urban Meyer restored the Gators’ glory of the nineties?

For sure, Meyer had become the brightest star in the coaching constellation as a sort of Bob Vila fixer-upper of college football. After his third year at Florida, his success rate in the restoration and/or turnaround of three programs over seven seasons as a head coach was off the charts: an .814 winning percentage.

In his third consecutive season as a head coach at the same school for the first time ever, Meyer knew he would have to prove he could win with his own material.

I would have a chance to find out for myself, becoming virtually embedded with the Gator team. I amassed a large amount of information and began studying the human dynamics of his program to try to crack the code.

This was a great vantage point and a choice assignment for a columnist/author whose roots tapped into that north-central Florida dirt… who grew up listening to Florida football on the radio before there were live telecasts… and who spent a large chunk of his forty-year journalism career observing and writing about these Gators.

This is not to say that Meyer’s magic formula was uncovered or that company secrets were revealed. However, after several tutorials on Meyer’s "Plan to Win," I began to understand this was the matrix for everything and Urban’s blueprint for success. Understanding of the Plan gave considerable enlightenment about the amount of time, money, and energy that Meyer and his staff put in to the care and feeding of players. At the same time, much is expected from those athletes as willing participants in Meyer’s "competitive excellence."

All his former players admit playing for Meyer "is hard!" Those who survive the rigors of mat drills and early-morning running punishment for missed class or misbehaving badly, however, have a sense of accomplishment, although, admittedly, maybe not at the time they were retching over a trash can or laboring to get up the stadium stairs....