Urban Meyer had one of those sleepless nights Saturday after the Florida Gators had beaten Alabama for the Southeastern Conference championship at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. The euphoria of victory gave way to worries about the imperfect BCS system, which uses computers and silly polls to select the teams that play for the national championship rather than deciding it on the field as in every other sport known to man. A worrier by nature who can’t rest until he’s satisfied that he’s done everything in his power to prepare the Gators to win football games, Meyer couldn’t relax Sunday until he was certain Florida wouldn’t be left out of the equation for the FedEx BCS National Championship Game.
He was running on adrenaline Sunday evening when word came down that the Gators will be facing number one ranked (in the coaches and BCS standings) Oklahoma on January 8 at Dolphins Stadium to decide college football’s 2008 national champion. When he met with the media at the Florida football complex, he admitted that it was a nerve racking 24 hours, filled with plenty of doubt.
“Zero sleep and I came in and wore Jeremy (Foley) out, a little bit like two years ago,” said Meyer, who didn’t rest after the 2006 SEC Championship Game until the Gators were selected to play Ohio State for the national championship. “A little bit of doubt … that’s not correct. A lot of doubt.”
There was doubt because the Gators had to jump Texas in the Coaches poll plus pick up enough points in the computer rankings to ensure a second place finish in the BCS Standings. The Gators moved up from fourth to second in the Coaches Poll, which was announced around midday Sunday, and they moved from second to first in the Harris Poll, replacing Alabama, whom the Gators beat 31-20 Saturday for the SEC title.
It was the computer rankings that scared Meyer. The week before, the computers had Florida ranked sixth and even with a win over previously unbeaten and number one ranked Alabama, they only made it as high as third in the rankings.
“It’s an imperfect system,” said Meyer. “You just never know. You can control what you can control, and that’s play good defense and special teams. And our performance against Alabama on offense was very good. Those are the things you can control, not the computers and the polls.”
* * *
Meyer was an assistant coach at Colorado State when he first met Bobby Stoops, the Oklahoma head coach. Meyer was coaching wide receivers and Stoops was the co-defensive coordinator at Kansas State along with now South Florida head coach Jim Leavitt. It was the beginning of a close friendship for Meyer and Stoops, whose coaching roots trace back to northeastern Ohio. Meyer is from Ashtabula while Stoops is from Youngstown, where his father was a legendary high school football coach at Cardinal Mooney.
From Colorado State, Meyer went on to coach at Notre Dame before he became a head coach at Bowling Green and Utah prior to becoming the Florida head coach in 2004. Stoops left Kansas State to become the defensive coordinator for Steve Spurrier on Florida’s 1996 national championship team. Stoops stayed at Florida through 1999, when he took the head coaching job at Oklahoma.
They’ve been across the sideline from each other one time since that first meeting. Meyer was coaching Notre Dame’s wide receivers in 1999 when the Fighting Irish beat Oklahoma, 34-30, in Stoops’ first year on the job in Norman.
The friendship has remained solid throughout the years.
“Bob’s a good friend of mine,” said Meyer. “He’s from Youngstown, Ohio; I’m from Ashtabula, Ohio. That’s about an hour and a half apart … not even that far. He went to Cardinal Mooney; I went to Ashtabula St. John. We talk quite often. He’s a defensive guy and I’ve run some things by him in the past as far as hiring coaches to schematic issues and he’s run some things by me as recently as this summer offensively. We talked two weeks ago about some other issues so there’s a very good healthy relationship there and a lot of respect.”
In one certain respect, it is a mirror image of two years ago when Meyer squared off against another northern Ohio native in Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, whose father was a legendary high school coach at Mentor. Tressel’s dad led Baldwin-Wallace to the 1978 NCAA Division III national championship. Tressel won four NCAA Division I-AA national championships at Youngstown State and he’s won a national championship at Ohio State.
* * *
Florida All-American wide receiver/tailback Percy Harvin is expected to be ready to play when the Gators square off with Oklahoma. Harvin missed the SEC Championship Game with a high ankle sprain suffered against Florida State in the Gators’ final regular season game. He spent the week in rehab and thought he was going to be able to play against Alabama but it was determined Friday evening that he had to sit. Meyer said
“We met with the doctors today and the trainers,” said Meyer. “The week we travel to Miami we’re expecting him for full practices.”
Harvin said that there is no doubt he will be playing in the national championship game.
“I have a month to get ready,” said Harvin Sunday night. “There’s no way I’ll miss this game. I’ll be ready to play and to do whatever I can to help us win this game.”
Harvin has caught 35 passes for 595 yards and seven touchdowns this season and he has rushed for 538 yards and nine touchdowns. He has scored at least one touchdown in the last 14 games he has played.
Redshirt freshman tailback Chris Rainey, who leads the Gators with 665 rushing yards, saw limited duty against Alabama. Rainey has a groin injury that might require surgery in the offseason. He will get some rest over the next few weeks but he is expected to be healthy enough to play against Oklahoma.
“We just have to watch him during practice,” said Meyer.
Senior tailback Kestahn Moore has a sprained knee but he is expected to be 100 percent for Oklahoma and junior left guard Carl Johnson also has a sprained knee, but he, too, is expected to be 100 percent for the game.
* * *
Meyer picked up the first penalty of his coaching career Saturday night against Alabama in the fourth quarter. With the Gators leading 24-20 and the ball an inch away from the Alabama goal, Florida was flagged for sideline interference by side judge Chris Conley. From second and goal an inch away, the ball was moved back five yards and it could have contributed to a different final outcome if Tim Tebow hadn’t connected with Riley Cooper for a touchdown pass on third down and goal.
“That was wrong,” said Meyer, who voiced his displeasure with the call in his post game remarks. “I need an answer for that one.”
Meyer explained what was going on when he got called for the penalty.
“What happened was one of their players kicked the ball,” said Meyer. “One of their players ran through our formation — they had 12 people on the field — and the guy kicked the ball and the official stops the clock and the referee — I thought he did a great job throughout the game just handling the game — resets the clock and they stop the game. Phil Trautwein and our offense, they start walking toward me. They thought it was a time out. As they’re resetting the clock so we have a time issue. I’m 35 yards away and the ball is on the one inch line or foot line going in. I’m saying, ‘Get back in there! Get back in there!’ I start walking back and someone says there’s a flag and I thought delay of game. I said delay of game? And that’s what the call was.
“Major implications in that game. Four point lead and 35 yards away from what’s going on. … I’m on the 30 yard line and that ball is on the one-foot line. There was a mechanical procedural, resetting the clock and with a noisy stadium they couldn’t hear.”
Meyer implied that he is taking the penalty up with the SEC office, saying, “We’re addressing it.”
* * *
Meyer said that defensive line coach Dan McCarney spent Sunday interviewing for the vacant head coaching job at New Mexico State. The winningest head coach in Iowa State history, McCarney is somewhat of a hot commodity with so many coaching vacancies, particularly after the results he got from Florida’s defensive line this season.
“The athletic director at New Mexico is the athletic director that hired me at Bowling Green. “He’s a great athletic director and obviously Dan McCarney is the winningest coach in Iowa State history. When I hired him [McCarney] I knew that he was the kind of guy that I would hire as a head coach.”
This is McCarney’s first season with the Gators. He replaced Greg Mattison, who took a higher paying job in the NFL with the Baltimore Ravens, in February and his job was to take an inexperienced defensive line and turn it into one that could play at a championship level. His value to the Gators was never more evident than Saturday night when injuries reduced him to four tackles in the defensive line rotation to go against Alabama’s huge, veteran offensive line. The Crimson Tide came into the game averaging nearly 200 rushing yards per game, but the Gators held them to 147 yards and only one in the fourth quarter.
“We lost a brilliant coach in Greg Mattison and we replaced him with a brilliant coach in Dan McCarney,” said Meyer.
Other Florida assistants are being mentioned to fill head coaching vacancies. Offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Dan Mullen is reported to be a finalist along with Louisiana Tech head coach Derek Dooley for the vacant Mississippi State job. Meyer said that he knew Mullen is in consideration for the Mississippi State vacancy but he said he doesn’t believe the report that Mullen is a finalist is true.
Defensive coordinator Charlie Strong’s name is starting to surface at several schools and offensive line coach Steve Addazio is still being mentioned as a possibility for the vacant Syracuse job.