One time, when Urban Meyer was recruiting in Florida as a young assistant for Notre Dame, he saw a couple of signs for Gainesville. He did a quick detour and made a beeline for famed Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
It was open. He walked in and went to the middle of the field. He looked around The Swamp, trying to imagine this steamy pit filled with 90,000 screaming fans. He picked up his cellphone and called his wife, Shelley.
“Now I’ve got a sense of why they’re so hard to recruit against,” Meyer said.
Saturday he found himself on the same field, looking up at those 90,000 screaming fans. This time they were screaming for him. His Gators had just bitten the head off ninth-ranked Louisiana State, 23-10, and had returned to national title contention.
Meyer stopped before exiting the field and walking through the tunnel. He looked up again at the delirious throng and pumped his fists in acknowledgment.
Florida football is back, and Meyer, the Colorado State receivers coach from 1990-95, is at the helm, working his usual second-year magic. The Gators are 6-0 for the first time since the 1996 national championship year and are ranked second, their highest ranking since Steve Spurrier’s swan song in 2001.
The same Gator fans who gobbled up Ron Zook and spit him out all the way to Illinois two years ago have become puppy dogs at Meyer’s feet. Well, most of them anyway.
“I couldn’t imagine it being any better,” said Stumpy Harris, 68, a Florida alum and lifetime director of Gator Boosters. “I’m certainly in contact with lots and lots and lots of people. They feel he has a good streak of what you could call old school in him.”
You could almost see this coming. In his second year at Bowling Green in 2002, the Falcons went 9-3 and their No. 16 ranking was the highest in school history. In 2004, his second Utah team merely went 12-0 and finished fifth nationally.
Daunting new world
But the Gators are a different reptile. He’s not coaching in the Mountain West or Mid-American. He’s in the Southeastern Conference. He doesn’t just have to deal with the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret Morning News. There are 20 print reporters at nearly every Florida practice.
“The biggest challenge going to a place like Florida is the teams you play,” Meyer said Tuesday from Gainesville. “You recruit your rear-end off because everyone else is, but it’s the teams you play. It’s not the heat, not the size of the stadium. Everyone’s coaching good players.”
Take Saturday at 5:45 p.m. MDT. Florida has already steamrolled through a gantlet of Alabama and LSU and now visits No. 11 Auburn, followed by its annual rivalry in Jacksonville with No. 16 Georgia. That’s a long way from playing Nevada-Las Vegas and Eastern Michigan.
“It’s ridiculous,” Meyer said. “Every week – and every coach does this – you play your game on Saturday, and Sunday go to church or whatever you do, then flip on the tape, grade your film and start watching your opponent. About 1:30 you get this sick feeling: How are you going to block these guys?”
Meyer, 42, has done it on multiple levels. First, he injected a needed dose of discipline by assigning veterans to prowl nightclubs checking on wayward teammates. He rewards players who do well in class with extra gear. Since he took over, only one player has been arrested.
Second, he embraced the former players Zook neglected. Meyer has an annual alumni barbecue every August, established a Gator Walk that Saturday attracted 3,000 fans, and started a Ring of Fame in which Emmitt Smith, Jack Youngblood, Danny Wuerffel and Spurrier were honored. Last week, Meyer organized a dinner for all past Gator captains.
“I’m a big fan of college football,” Meyer said. “I’ve embraced the past at every school I’ve been at. I had no ties to Florida. I never had. But the reason this staff came here is because of the tradition.”
Some problems persist
But let’s face it, Zook could have had every captain in history on the sideline and still would have been run out of town. Meyer is loved because he is winning. He stuck with a spread offense skeptical fans felt didn’t fit plodding quarterback Chris Leak, and today Leak is the No. 13 passer in the country.
“Like all of us, we can all improve in different areas, but he has a tremendous grasp of different pieces,” Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley said. “I’m amazed at his grasp. He gets it.”
But he has his detractors. Some wonder why he doesn’t play freshman sensation Tim Tebow more but are slowly realizing the change of pace with Leak has made Florida more difficult to defend. Neither one, however, is the still-beloved Wuerffel, nor is Meyer the even more-deified Spurrier.
“Spurrier was different,” Harris said. “He was going to score on you. Score. Score. Score. This team we’ve got now is tough as nails.”
It better be. Star freshman receiver Percy Harvin is still recovering from an ankle sprain, and leading rusher DeShawn Wynn didn’t play against LSU because of an ailing knee and might miss Saturday’s game. And Auburn (5-1), coming off a loss to Arkansas, is angry.
But if this is Meyer’s second year at Florida, what could he accomplish in a decade?
“We’re going to make a necklace out of national championship rings,” Harris said.
John Henderson can be reached at 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
