urban meyer offseason article

Submitted by bcsblue on
I saw this posted over at the wolverine, http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/columns/story?columnist=maisel_ivan&id=19… good spin vs bad spin, im sure they didn't spend more than 8 hours in the offseason, I love this quote "Here at Florida," sophomore linebacker Brandon Siler said, "if you lock the chains on the doors, you can run us as long as you want to. I'm going to be the last to leave. You can't take football away from us." Maybe we see why RR is recruiting guys who "need" football to survive, I have heard on more than on occasion the coaching staff asking recruits what the would do without football. wanting them to say, the couldn't live without it.

Irish

August 30th, 2009 at 10:29 PM ^

It is harsh but there are certain teams or coaches which seem to bring out the worst parts of college football. They have done great things on the field no question, but way they go about doing it and the things they have put aside to get where they are is very depressing

BlockM

August 30th, 2009 at 10:13 PM ^

I don't see a :), so I'm assuming you're being serious. Are you implying that somehow this is different (and more OK) than what has happened at Michigan simply because Florida doesn't have as high of an academic reputation in regards to their scholarship athletes?

MichiganExile

August 31st, 2009 at 12:15 AM ^

In certain respects he would have. But ND would not lower their academic standards to the level of UF athletes to win. Say what you will about Notre Dame but they do hold their athletes to a standard of academic principle that is very high. I don't have facts or figures to back this up but I would wager that a lot of athletes at UF would not qualify at ND.

West Texas Blue

August 30th, 2009 at 10:25 PM ^

Well, Florida has won 2 championships in 3 years and is heavily favored to win another one this year. Who cares if UF players even remotely fit the mold of student-athletes; Meyer has built a winner down at UF that most schools would trade for gladly. Let's not kid ourselves here; these kids came here to play football. They'll get an education, but coaches' careers are built on win-loss records and on-field results, not team GPA or other off the field merits.

gater

August 30th, 2009 at 10:06 PM ^

I keep thinking that the difference is that Florida has been open to the media for a long time, while Michigan has been closed to the media forever. The journalists that cover Michigan are now seeing things that they've never seen and had no idea existed. I think going over the 20 hours is kind of a hush hush "everybody knows and does it" kind of thing that the people in Florida have seen forever and know about. The people covering Michigan have always thought things were followed right to the letter of the rule because they didn't know any better. Now that they can see that there is a lot of gray area and things sometimes look worse than they are (academics/work outs) they want to break the story...while the people in Florida know that there is no story to break.

Mr. McBlue and…

August 30th, 2009 at 10:09 PM ^

Great read. Favorite lines are right up front: "The stories are true, Florida coach Urban Meyer says, although he's a little sheepish about them. When he took over at Bowling Green in 2001, he brought the Falcons into the gym, chained the doors, put out the garbage cans for puking and got down to business." "Our purpose," Meyer says, "was to get rid of people."

Jlow

August 30th, 2009 at 11:20 PM ^

Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape. This was by far the toughest school that I have ever been through. My time in Afghanistan was rough, but no where near as rough as my time in SERE school. I would give details but of course SSI and TS issues kind of got me silent. HAHA!

meals69

August 31st, 2009 at 4:42 AM ^

he ran us for two hours while he sipped his coffe from mcdonald's, the rest of the coaching staff were there also, (most of them watching in disbelief) including the strength coach who ultimately left b/c of how meyer treated us. alot of my friends left shortly there after. he didn't want to get the shit out of the program....he simply wanted to get as many of us to leave as possible so he could bring in more of the recruits he wanted. i more than loath this man for what he did to me and my team, the way he treated us was inhumane and we know we were just a stepping stone for him...(and contrary to polpular beleif we won in spite of him, not b/c of him)..which he confirmed at the end of his second season when he left for utah. his speach to the team when he took the job: I took the job at Utah, goodbye. (i shit you not, it was that short) i releish every moment he falls flat on his face, i still play with myself while watching the 2008 capital one bowl, and if i ever met Uran meyer in a dark alley, i guarentee he would definately remember me for the rest of his life!

OkinawaGoBlue

August 30th, 2009 at 10:38 PM ^

This article says it all and I'm sure it speaks for a majority of the successful major college programs today. It should be entered in as evidence in the now ongoing internal UM investigation to show that things are no different elsewhere.

Jeff

August 30th, 2009 at 11:09 PM ^

Al Groh had a quote in that article that I liked a lot. Even schools that aren't elite (sorry to those UVA fans) have the same attitude. "When I was in school," said Virginia coach Al Groh, speaking of his playing career with the Cavaliers in the 1960s, "there was no standard offseason program. It was up to what the player wanted to do. If you trained, great. If you didn't train, nobody was mad at you. A player operating like that could never hope to keep up today."