Jacksonville Jaguars Fire Former Florida Gators HC Urban Meyer

A lot of outsiders didn't expect the Urban Meyer era to last very long in Jacksonville. No one anticipated it to come to an end like this, at least until the last week or so.

Meyer, the former two-time National Championship-winning head coach of the Florida Gators in the mid-to-late 2000s, was fired from the same position with the Jacksonville Jaguars just after midnight on Thursday morning, owner Shad Khan announced.

Jacksonville has promoted offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell to interim head coach after Meyer's exit.

Darrell Bevell will serve as interim head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars for the balance of the 2021 season. Darrell succeeds Urban Meyer. After deliberation over many weeks and a thorough analysis of the entirety of Urban's tenure with our team, I am bitterly disappointed to arrive at the conclusion that an immediate change is imperative for everyone. I informed Urban of the change this evening. As I stated in October, regaining our trust and respect was essential. Regrettably, it did not happen.

Trent Baalke continues as our general manager and will work with Darrell to ensure that our team will be inspired and competitive while representing Jacksonville proudly over our final four games of the season. In the spirit of closure and recharging our players, staff and fan base, I will not comment further until some point following the conclusion of the NFL season.

Meyer was 13 games into his first season as a head coach at the NFL level, and he exits with a 2-11 record.

Although the Jaguars looked like more of a lifeless team than it did a year ago, before Meyer took over as head coach, Meyer was relieved of his duties for reasons beyond Xs and Os and Jacksonville's record.

Meyer couldn't keep himself out of the news, basically, since he first took over the job, for reasons that didn't include winning football games. It started with the hiring of former Iowa strength coach Chris Doyle despite accusations of racist remarks and abuse toward his players, which Meyer was eventually subpoenaed for.

Months later before the season began, Meyer and the organization were each handed six-figure fines for violating offseason practice no-contact rules.

Near the end of September, after Meyer's Jaguars began the 2021 season 0-4, videos surfaced of the 57-year-old in an Ohio bar dancing with and groping the posterior of a younger woman who was not his wife, Shelley. Meyer remained in Ohio following the Jaguars' Week 4 Thursday night loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, not flying home with the team which is unheard of at the pro level.

Then, as losing and bafflingly unproductive offense despite quarterback Trevor Lawrence being the team's 2021 No. 1 overall draft pick continued on, Meyer seemingly began to check out. He came under fire for the confusing benching of star running back James Robinson in recent weeks, which led to Lawrence speaking out against the head coach's decision-making, although it did not directly criticize Meyer.

The issue, however, is Meyer consistently pushed the blame onto others for the team's struggles and disappointing coaching decisions. An NFL Network report surfaced stating that Meyer, specifically, called for Robinson's benching, although when he faced the media, Meyer denied his involvement in such decisions and said those are made by his assistants, Bevell and running backs coach Bernie Parmalee.

Neither Bevell nor Parmalee have been made available or expressed a willingness to publicly comment on the Robinson situation.

The same report suggested that Meyer and veteran receiver/team captain Marvin Jones Jr. left the team's practice facility out of frustration with Meyer publicly criticizing the play at his position, only to return and enter a verbal altercation with the head coach. The report also mentioned that Meyer called his assistant coaches — who he hand-picked to hire less than a year ago — "losers" and demanded they defend their résumés in a staff meeting.

The final straw, seemingly, was a glaring Tampa Bay Times report that came to light on Wednesday, where former Jaguars kicker Josh Lambo (2017-21) accused Meyer of, yes, kicking Lambo during an August practice after hurling explicit insults at the seven-year pro for missing field goals in the preseason.

Meyer, a coach known not to always be truthful, naturally denied all of these allegations, sans the video-recorded bar incident, and instead threatened the employment of anyone inside the building leaking team-related information on Sunday.

Instead, it was his employment that was in jeopardy, and ultimately, Khan decided it was time to pull the plug.

11 coaches have made the direct jump from college to being an NFL lead man, Meyer included. He's the second of his kind to not last a full season, matching Bobby Petrino's number of games coached (13) when he was with the Atlanta Falcons in 2007, before ditching the pros to lead the Arkansas Razorbacks.

Meyer finishes his pro career having only defeated the Miami Dolphins and Buffalo Bills.

Stay tuned to AllGators for continuous coverage of Florida Gators football, basketball and recruiting. Follow along on social media at @SI_AllGators on Twitter and Florida Gators on Sports Illustrated on Facebook.