Urban Meyer addresses coaching rumors tied to historic college football program

FOX Sports analyst Urban Meyer has been out of coaching since 2021, but he addressed the rumors surrounding an alleged possible return on The Triple Option podcast. Meyer won championships at Florida and Ohio State, but left the latter school after 2018, in part due to health concerns. He return to coaching briefly with the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2021 and struggled.

But rumors have indicated that Meyer was under consideration for the Penn State job following the firing of coach James Franklin. Meyer was asked by co-host Rob Stone on The Triple Option about reports that have linked him to Penn State after a rumored meeting with U.S. Senator Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania.

Meyer recounts the rumors

He [writer Matt Gelb] has two sources that I met with the Senator-- that we became friends. Rob, you were there with Dave McCormick when we covered a Penn State game and I stayed in touch with him, and we had breakfast in the [U.S.] Capitol and we talked politics, Mark. And then, there's another one. The source says that I had conversations with Penn State about the NIL and I didn't know how to handle the NIL or something. So first of all, that never happened. How do we get the two sources on our show here?
Urban Meyer

While Meyer never explicitly said that he has no interest in returning to coaching, his co-hosts commented on his non-coaching and chuckled with him at the rumors. Mark Ingram joked about his father asking about Meyer and Ingram said that he told him, "Coach is on the tee box, man. Don't send this stuff to my phone."

Meyer's issues and resume

Again, Meyer hasn't coached in college since 2018 and has been successful in his broadcasting work with FOX since his departure. While Meyer made light of concerns about NIL, his coaching career predated the existence of NIL, so in a very literal sense, Meyer has no experience with those issues.

That said, there is little doubt that many schools would be interested if Meyer was on the market. Meyer was 65-15 at Florida, with three 13-win seasons (and two national titles) in six seasons. He was 83-9 at Ohio State, never lost more than two games in any season, and won another national title there.

Meyer pushes an alternative candidate

Much of Meyer's recent energy seems to be devoted to campaigning for his former assistant coach Brian Hartline in regard to one of the many vacant head coaching jobs. The 38-year old Hartline was a wide receivers coach in Meyer's final season at OSU but has seen his role grow to offensive coordinator.