Nick Saban Tale of the Tape, Class of 2025 Hall of Fame Edition: Urban Meyer

With Nick Saban being on hand when Alabama hosts Vanderbilt on Saturday, as College GameDay will be set up near Denny Chimes for its weekly pregame show, he'll be honored with the NFF Hall of Fame On-Campus Salute, during the game.

It seemed like a good time to do the Saban Tale of the Tape with another coach in the Hall of Fame Class of 2025, Urban Meyer.

Saban’s departure into the National Football League for the 2005-06 seasons coincided with the arrival of Meyer who may have immediately replaced him as the toughest coach to beat in the Southeastern Conference.

Meyer had been a fast riser as a head coach, with Bowling Green going from 2-9 to 8-3 his first year, and after a combined 17-6 record over two seasons headed to Utah. With Alex Smith at quarterback, the Utes became not only the first team from a non-automatically qualifying BCS conference to play in a BCS Bowl, but won, dominating Pittsburgh 35-7 in the Fiesta Bowl.

But following Utah’s first perfect season since 1930, both Notre Dame and Florida came calling and to the surprise of some he chose the Gators and a lucrative seven-year contract that would pay $14 million, over one of the places he had been an assistant coach (1996-2000) and had repeatedly called his “dream job.” That Meyer also had to deal with former Florida coach Steve Spurrier being in the same division was problematic until he beat out Alabama for the player who would become the face of college football, Tim Tebow.

In 2006, the Gators survived the toughest schedule in the country to win the SEC championship and, thanks to UCLA upsetting Southern California in the regular season finale, played Ohio State for the national title. Although the Buckeyes scored on the opening kickoff, the Gators crushed them, 41-14.

“Honestly, we played a lot better teams than them,” defensive end Jarvis Moss said. “I could name four or five teams in the SEC that could probably compete with them and play the same type of game we did against them.”

Due to the defense being depleted by graduation and departures to the NFL the Gators stumbled in 2007, losing three games and failing to return to the conference championship, but they were once again considered the team to beat in 2008. A one-point loss led to “The speech” by Tebow, who promised fans “you'll never see a team play harder than we will the rest of this season.”

Florida went on to crush every subsequent opponent, with the closest score 42-14 at Vanderbilt, until it faced No. 1. Alabama and Saban in the SEC Championship. The game went back-and-fourth until Florida finally pulled away in the fourth quarter for a 31-20 victory, and went on to beat Oklahoma for the national title, 24-14.

“I'm not sure I enjoyed that last one enough,” Meyer said. “I'm going to enjoy this one.”

The 2009 team looked like it could even be better, and after running the table in the regular season the rematch in the SEC Championship Game was billed not only as being the exclamation point to Tebow’s career, but he was on the doorstep of going down as the greatest player in college football history and Florida being a dynasty. However, Alabama’s focus over the offseason was on beating the Gators, and it showed.

The Crimson Tide arrived at the Georgia Dome with a mile-wide chip on its collective shoulder and took it out on the Gators in a game that wasn’t as close as the 32-13 score indicated. Overall, Alabama pummeled Florida nearly across the board statistically, including first downs (26-13), rushing yards (251-88), time of possession (39:27-20:23), and third-down conversions (11 of 15 vs. 4 of 11). The Tide never trailed, scored on six of its first seven possessions (minus running out the clock before halftime), and pulled up in the fourth quarter.

Tebow’s last-gasp pass wound up being intercepted in the end zone by cornerback Javier Arenas, reducing the quarterback to tears on the sideline. Alabama fans refer to it as “Tebow wept.”

''He's a great player,'' said receiver Julio Jones, ''but man, we're tired of him.''

Mark Ingram rushed for 113 yards and three touchdowns and Greg McElroy, who landed at Alabama after it got beat out for Tebow, threw for 239 yards and a touchdown to claim the MVP award.

Although a great rivalry appeared to be brewing between the coaches, their regular-season rematch in 2010 turned out to be a dud as Alabama easily won at home, 31-6. It was the first of three-straight losses for Florida, and after a lackluster 8-4 season Meyer shocked the college football world by announcing that he was stepping away from coaching due to health concerns and to spend more time with his family.

In six seasons, the Gators had won 65 games, two Southeastern Conference championships and two national titles, but also had 31 players arrested from 2005-2010 – a stigma that would stick with the coach for years.

Meyer ended up working for ESPN for a year and then got back into coaching at Ohio State in 2012. Previously he had called himself an “organizational freak,” who had a speed-based spread offense that was particularly difficult to counter, but the secret of his success wasn’t too difficult to figure out.

“Back as a player, I was always the hardest working guy,” he said. “I would be so upset with myself if I wasn’t. Was I the best? I was average, but I outworked everybody. As a coach, am I the smartest? No. But I believe that in a lot of areas I outwork a lot of guys.”

With the Buckeyes ineligible for the postseason due to NCAA penalties, they went 12-0 during his first season in Columbus, and rekindled the idea of another potential postseason matchup with Saban – hoping next time it would be for a national title. They collided in the first year of the four-team College Football Playoff, when Saban make the mistake of treating the Sugar Bowl semifinal like it was a bowl game, and ended up on the losing end of a shootout, 42-35. The Buckeyes went on to defeat Oregon for the national title, 42-20.

Saban bounced back and won three more national titles, but it was really the last hurrah for Meyer in coaching. Granted, his next four teams finished for at least tied for first in the Big Ten East, but none were able to reach the title game. On Dec. 4, 2018, Meyer announced that he would retire from coaching following the team's Rose Bowl appearance due to health reasons. He returned in 2021 to lead the Jacksonville Jaguars, but went 2-11 in one of the shortest tenures in NFL history.

Although both have retired from coaching, Saban and Meyer are still going at it in a way. While Saban is on ESPN's pregame show on Saturday mornings, Meyer is on the Fox version with former Crimson Tide running and Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram II. Saban won a SportsEmmy last year for outstanding personality and emerging on-air talent, while at Ohio State Meyer had Regional Emmy Award-winning 'GameTime With Urban Meyer' show.

Note: Statistics for both coaches are through Nick Saban's final year in college football, 2023.

Nick Saban vs. Urban Meyer

Category, Nick Saban; Urban Meyer

Seasons 28; 17
Consensus national titles 7; 3
Top 5 finishes 13; 9
Overall record 292-71-1; 187-32
Winning percentage .804; .854
Losing seasons 0; 0
CFP/Bowl record 19-12; 12-3
CFP/Bowl percentage .613; .800
Conference titles 12; 7
Conference record 175-47-1; 114-22
Consensus All-Americans 52; 15
First-round draft picks 52; 22

Head to head: 2-2

Record against ranked teams 104-48; 45-15
Winning percentage against ranked teams .684; .750
Record against Top 10 teams 48-25; 25-7
Winning percentage against Top 10 teams .658; .78.1

Ratios/percentages
National title seasons: One every 4.0 seasons; 5.7
Consensus All-Americans: 1.86 every season; .88
First-round draft picks: 1.86. every season; 1.29
Average wins against ranked opponents: 3.7 every season; 2.65
Wins over top 10 teams per year: 1.7 every season; .88

The College Football Hall of Fame Class of 205

The class includes players Montee Ball (Wisconsin), Gregg Carr (Auburn), Blake Elliott (Saint John's [MN]), Greg Eslinger (Minnesota), Terry Hanratty (Notre Dame), Graham Harrell (Texas Tech), John Henderson (Tennessee), Michael Huff (Texas), Jim Kleinsasser (North Dakota), Alex Mack (California), Terrence Metcalf (Mississippi), Haloti Ngata (Oregon), Steve Slaton (West Virginia), Darrin Smith (Miami, FL), Michael Strahan (Texas Southern), Dennis Thurman (Southern California), Michael Vick (Virginia Tech), Ryan Yarborough (Wyoming).

The coaches Larry Blakeney (Troy), Larry Korver (Northwestern College [IA]), Urban Meyer (Bowling Green, Utah, Florida, Ohio State), Nick Saban (Toledo, Michigan State, LSU, Alabama).

The 2025 NFF College Football Hall of Fame Class will officially be inducted during the 67th NFF Annual Awards Dinner Presented by Las Vegas on Dec. 9, 2025, at Bellagio Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.

Tale of the Tape will regularly appear on Alabama Crimson Tide On Si/BamaCentral through the 2025 and 2026 college football seasons. Christopher Walsh is the author of the 2014 book "Nick Saban vs. College Football: The Case for College Football's Greatest Coach."