Urban Meyer Opens The Door To Coaching USC and Tennessee
Urban Meyer Opens The Door To Coaching USC and Tennessee
Urban Meyer Opens The Door To Coaching USC and Tennessee
Urban Meyer opens the door to coaching USC and Tennessee in a new interview he gave this week.
Speaking in depth to Doug Lesmerises of cleveland.com, Meyer made it clear that he knew there was a ton of speculation around his potential return to coaching, but that he could not commit to anything right now.
While that sounds like a strike against him returning to coaching, he was actually just as noncommittal about staying retired as he was about coming back.
Urban Meyer is trying to build a busy, meaningful professional life away from coaching. If he can do it, he really may never coach again. That might be a big if. “Those are some of the payback moments. You take away those moments and I would be concerned” https://t.co/Dc0DbbLG5a
— Doug Lesmerises (@DougLesmerises) September 12, 2019
You only need to go four paragraphs into the story to get to this line: “Meyer doesn’t really want to coach football again. But he might have to.”
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Meyer openly admits throughout the conversation that he misses the battles involved in coaching.
“The morning is the hardest time of day,” he said.
“You’re not in a fight,” Meyer continued.
“I’ve been in a fight for 33 years, and now you’re not in that fight,” he added.
“So how do you fulfill that fight? And I feel that every morning. Every morning.
“It’s all about a win and a loss for 33 years. I mean every day was. Not just you’re getting ready for a game. No, no, no, no. You’re recruiting every day. You’re going against Alabama and Clemson every day, The Team Up North every day. Now you’re not. That’s the number one void, is you’re not in a fight.”
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When pressed specifically on the potential openings in college football head coaching and how he may fit them, Meyer refused to say that he would not ever be interested.
“I’m not there at the moment,” he said.
“Like you said, next year can I say that? We’ll talk again next year and we’ll see.”
Next year, when Meyer recommends programs talk to him again, both USC and Tennessee may have head coaching vacancies.
Tennessee is almost a lock to fire Jeremy Pruitt at some point within the next 12 months, and USC may do the same with Clay Helton.
Last weekend, Meyer expressed a lot of admiration towards the Tennessee football program, and it made many speculate whether he might be interested in returning to the SEC at some point.
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“They were heads and tails above the other teams in the SEC East,” he said, recounting what the Volunteers were like when he first joined the SEC.
“They were the best team in the SEC East; Phil Fulmer was the coach. They had NFL Draft picks all over their team. They recruited at a high, high level.
“You go in the stadium, and I remember my family told me one time, that’s the hardest stadium to play [in]. And you saw just a steady deterioration.”
Meyer also seemed confident that it wouldn’t be particularly hard to recruit at Tennessee.
“And I heard that Tennessee’s not a great state for recruiting; I don’t know if I believe that,” he noted.
“Nashville’s great high school football. Memphis is great high school football,” he continued.
“So I’m not sure what’s going on. It’s been that way for a few years now. So I’m just shocked.
“Because I think Tennessee, you see their facilities, you see the investment in the program and I’m not sure what’s going on.”
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He then called the Volunteers one of the best coaching jobs in America.
“You’re talking about one of the top 10 jobs in America, a tradition-rich program,” Meyer said.
Along the same lines, Meyer was linked to USC this week after the school parted ways with athletic director Lynn Swann.
The assumption is that the Trojans will now go out and bring in an AD with the sort of resume that would be able to lure in someone’s of Meyer’s caliber.
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Will Meyer ultimately return to coaching? It remains to seen, but all signs seem to be pointing to “yes.”
Will he go to USC or Tennessee when he returns?
Only time will tell.
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A graduate from the University of Texas, Anthony Amador has been credentialed to cover the Houston Texans, Dallas Cowboys, San Antonio Spurs, Dallas Mavericks and high school games all over the Lone Star State. Currently, his primary beats are the NBA, MLB, NFL and UFC.
