|
Urban Meyer (born July 10, 1964 in Ashtabula, Ohio) is currently the head football coach at the University of Florida. He took the Florida job after two years as head coach at the University of Utah, where he led the Utes to two of their greatest seasons in history.
Meyer's first coaching position was a two-year stint as a graduate assistant at Ohio State. He then spent the next 13 years as an assistant—two at Illinois State, six at Colorado State, and finally five at Notre Dame. In 2001, Meyer took his first head coaching job at Bowling Green; in his first season there, he engineered the greatest turnaround in the NCAA, earning Mid-American Conference Coach of the Year honors in the process.
After two seasons at Bowling Green, he took the job at Utah in 2003. In his first season there, Meyer was named the Mountain West Conference's Coach of the Year with a 10-2 record, the best ever for a coach's first season at Utah. He also earned honors as The Sporting News National Coach of the Year, the first Utes coach to do so. Meyer's success can be attributed to his unique offensive system that is reminiscent of Steve Spurrier's offense when he coached the Florida Gators. The system can best be described as an offshoot of Bill Walsh's famed West Coast offense, which relied on short, efficient pass routes and receivers making plays after the reception. Meyer's base offense spreads three receivers and puts the quarterback in the shotgun. Then, he introduces motion in the backfield and turns it into an option attack.
In 2004, Meyer led the Utes to a Bowl Championship Series bid, an accomplishment previously unheard-of for a "mid-major" program. In the wake of this accomplishment, he was prominently named as a candidate for high-profile openings at Florida and Notre Dame. Meyer eventually took the Florida job. He remained at Utah long enough to coach the team to a historic Fiesta Bowl win over Pittsburgh, capping off the Utes' first perfect season (12-0) since 1930.
|
