It’s time.
Actually, it’s past time.
Way past time.
Here we are on the 20th anniversary of the Florida Gators hiring one of the greatest coaches in college football history and Urban Meyer is still not in the school’s Ring of Honor.
Why?
How?
How can it be that Meyer just got elected into the College Football Hall of Fame earlier this week but he’s not been bestowed UF’s most prestigious football honor?
I wrote a similar column six years ago when Meyer retired from Ohio State, and still he has not been granted access to an exclusive club that includes just five UF players (Tim Tebow, Danny Wuerffel, Emmitt Smith, Wilber Marshall and Jack Youngblood) and one coach (Steve Spurrier).
Spurrier himself believes Meyer belongs in the Ring and actually invited Meyer to a charity fundraiser and fan meet-and-greet at his famous Gainesville restaurant — Spurrier’s Gridiron Grille — Friday night. Meyer acknowledged at the fundraiser that he would feel blessed if he were inducted into UF’s Ring of Honor and indicated Spurrier is lobbying for him.
“Coach asked me about the [Ring of Honor], and I think he’s swinging behind the scenes a little bit [to make it happen],” Meyer said.
There actually seemed to be some momentum to make it happen a few years ago, but then came Meyer’s disastrous and embarrassing one-year stint as head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars. After being fired by the Jags before his first season was even complete, Meyer’s infamy reached new lows.
As anybody who has read my column over the years knows, it’s just weird for me to be leading the charge to put Meyer in the Ring of Honor. I don’t know this for a fact, but I’m just guessing that I am Meyer’s least-favorite person in the sports media. I have written column after column over the years blasting him for his ethical and moral failures, not to mention his casual relationship with telling the truth.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t recognize his greatness as a college football coach and his credentials for getting into the Ring. Meyer was 65–15 during six seasons at UF, highlighted by national championships in 2006 and 2008. In all, Meyer put together a 187-32 college record and has the highest winning percentage (85.3%) of any major college coach other than Notre Dame legends Knute Rockne and Frank Leahy.
That’s right, Meyer has a higher winning percentage than Nick Saban (80.4%), who is commonly recognized as college coaching’s G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time). Ironically, Meyer is being inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame at the same time as Saban, who is the only modern-era coach other than Meyer to win national championships at two different schools.
I believe a case could be made that if Meyer hadn’t burned out at Florida, Saban might never have become the G.O.A.T. If an engaged, impassioned Meyer had stayed in the SEC, perhaps he and Saban would have traded national championships and become the greatest conference coaching rivalry since Tom Osborne and Barry Switzer.
Of course, it was Meyer’s messy departure from Florida that turned him from one of the greatest coaches in Gators history into the most hated coach in Gators history. After the Gators finished 8-5 in 2010, Meyer resigned at UF, citing health reasons and the desire to “spend more time with my family.”
However, in less than a year, he returned to his home state took the coaching job at Ohio State, where he went 83–9 in seven seasons and won the 2014 national championship before he left the college game for good in 2018. Gator Nation naturally felt betrayed took the OSU job, and the narrative became that Meyer could see his UF program was unraveling and plotted his departure, knowing all along he would get the Ohio State job if embattled coach Jim Tressel got fired. Meyer says now he wishes he hadn’t left Florida the way he did and claims it was never his intention to land at Ohio State.
“One thing I’ll regret for the rest of my life is the way I left [UF],” Meyer says. “Not in a bad way. It was just, I was blown out. I had to take a year off. When someone says, ‘Well, you had a plan to do something else,’ that’s not true. I mean, that’s silly. That’s nonsense. We worked our tails off to the point where I got ill. I couldn’t get out of bed at times. So I did the right thing. It was one of those things where I was worried about survival.”
Meyer claims when he stepped down at UF in December of 2010, he believed he would never coach again, but he quickly changed his mind two months later.
“I remember I was on a walk with [wife] Shelley in February and I said, ‘I made a mistake.’ And she’s like, ‘What?’ And I said, ‘I shouldn’t have done it. I want to coach again.’ And she says, ‘You’re out of your [mind]. No way.”
Meyer acknowledges now that his sudden resignation at Florida left the program in a bind unlike when he stepped down at Ohio State, where he left a strong infrastructure and a solid foundation that have allowed the program to sustain its excellence. Ryan Day, Meyer’s offensive coordinator at OSU, is 69-10 since taking over for his former boss and his Buckeyes will be playing for the national title against Notre Dame on Monday night.
Meanwhile, the Gators are on their fourth head coach since Meyer’s departure and the program has never come close to matching the dynamic dominance it reached under the Urbanator.
The purpose of UF’s Ring of Honor is to pay tribute to those individuals who have had a monumental impact on the football program. Meyer’s resume speaks for itself. He recruited Tebow and Percy Harvin, won two national championships, revitalized the program, and left an indelible mark on college football.
Gator fans don’t have to love Urban Meyer. They don’t have to forget the way he left or ignore the controversies that followed him throughout his career.
But they should recognize what he accomplished and acknowledge the role he played in making Florida a national power.
It’s time.
Time to put Urban Meyer into the Ring of Honor.
History demands it.
His greatness commands it.
Email me at mbianchi@orlandosentinel.com. Hit me up on X (formerly Twitter) @BianchiWrites and listen to my Open Mike radio show every weekday from 6 to 9:30 a.m. on FM 96.9, AM 740 and 969TheGame.com/listen
