It rained on Urban Meyer’s football practice Thursday, under dark skies, but it was nothing compared to the stormy days of just seven months ago when it was raining on his parade.
No wonder he doesn’t even want to think about last December when his life was upside down, his health in jeopardy and his stunningly successful career at Florida was held in question.
“I don’t remember,” he said the first time Thursday when I asked him to harken back to the journey that took him from there to here – just 10 days away from opening day against Miami of Ohio. He’s probably telling the truth, partially, because he’d like to forget most of it.
(Flashing back to last December: https://www.gatorcountry.com/football/article/steady_in_the_boat/)
At his Thursday press conference, once we got past all the non-sequitur responses to the questions about the two freshmen that were believed to be MIA for at least part of Tuesday’s practice, you could see the lights start to come on again in Urban’s eyes as he began to sense the smell of Game Day.
I asked him if he could believe he was actually sitting here now in the UAA Conference Room after all he’d gone through—losing and replacing coaches, holding his diamond-studded recruiting class together and sorting out his future.
“I don’t remember that,” he said with a playful smile. “Did that really happen?”
For maybe a nano-second he let that sink in, and then added, “Did I wake up? Yeah, that’s hard to believe.”
If it weren’t for the fact that he really hasn’t gone anywhere – unless you count the 24 hours when he had officially resigned—Urban would be a good candidate for Comeback of the Year. Especially if his youthful team turns out to be as good as many suspect it will be. He is knee-deep in young talent, and not even the Gators know how good they can be yet.
Meyer will be building on an impressive resume of wins and championships this season, knowing on one hand that youth is a two-edge sword – but in this case, a pearl-handle one. Most of us can’t wait to see the new babies, because we’ve heard they are beauties. I think that’s also why he’s starting to get itchy about getting back in the saddle again soon.
This was the old Urban in full 360, deflecting questions about Ronald Powell and Dominique Easley that he didn’t want to answer with all the aplomb of a Patrick Roy in goal. Navigating the land minds adroitly without getting ticked, cool and calculated. Maybe even enjoying a bit of jousting.
What you could discern from the smile and the twinkle in his eyes was the sense of anticipation by a man about to return full bore to the game he loves. And although he has already encountered twists and turns in this path, plus a pothole or two, I get the feeling he knows this will be a fun team to coach in a season of great promise.
Besides, Urban is starting to get the hang of things around here and, now that he’s put down his stake in Gainesville as his permanent home, he’s got to keep the neighborhood up.
Can this be his sixth year at Florida already? Where did the time go and how could he be in a three-way tie as the second-longest tenured coach in the SEC? Wasn’t it just yesterday we were all trying to figure out what this Spread was about and how this guy from Utah was going to survive in the man-eating SEC? Who ever dreamed Urban Meyer could take Gator Nation to the moon?
Now it is 2010 and time to ride the rocket again. Granted, it’s taking a while to get to the launch pad – just Monday Urban said he was about to push “the panic button” because the team looked so indecisive and disjointed. On Tuesday, two of his prized recruits missed a “partial” practice and he stonewalled against saying anything to the media about the exact nature of the problems with Ronald Powell and Dominique Easley.
On Thursday, despite a rather surprising number of walking wounded, he said he no longer had his finger on that button and confessed he, his staff and players were starting to get “excited” about the team coming together. This despite both his top left tackles being out – Xavier Nixon with a scoped knee and Matt Patchan with a pin in his wrist. Not to mention tight end Jordan Reed with a deep knee bruise, linebacker Brandon Hicks with a sprained thumb and quite a few others with nicks and dings.
Perhaps because he knows this is a byproduct of a hard-ass camp when muscle, bones and mind undergo stress testing. And it comes with the territory at Camp Meyer.
For the past seven months, Urban has been through his own personal training camp – a camp so tough that he wanted to quit, and did. So he can certainly understand it when an 18-year-old kid from thousands of miles away—fatigued and beaten up and homesick – might want to throw in the towel.
The “transfer” word never came up with Powell and Easley, he said, just as it never came up with him. Urban Meyer contemplated leaving the game all together, not coaching at another school. But he was brought back into the fold after rethinking things, realizing how precious his job and staff and friends were to him. Yes, I think that qualifies him to counsel young men on the issue of displacement.
Somehow this may create a bond between coach and players that could get them through a tight spot or two this season. I think Urban Meyer knows that, which could be why he was smiling about getting back to his future.