Urban Meyer Admits He Got One Major Thing Wrong About College Football

The coaching legend turned broadcaster failed to foresee one major shift in college football.

FOX analyst Urban Meyer discussed one major change in college football that has surprised him. | USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

The college football landscape has seen massive changes in the last few seasons. Few are better situated to understand the seismic moves in the game than former coaches like Urban Meyer and Nick Saban, who succeeded in the old model and have been analyzing college football at present. But even that perspective doesn't mean these guys get it right. As Meyer himself admitted, he failed to account for at least one element of the shifts in college football.

Meyer's Surprise

In discussing the shifting sands of college football with Colin Cowherd on The Herd, Meyer admitted that he had failed to understand the ultimate impact of NIL. "I though the rich would get richer," said Meyer. "What it's done is make parity in college football. I've talked to many of my colleagues in the last couple weeks. You flip on UCLA and then you flip on Alabama, what's the difference? I don't know."

Of course, some would point out that the difference of the teams is that UCLA hasn't taken a loss yet, while Alabama has already lost two games. Preseason top 10 picks Oregon, Texas A&M, and Oklahoma have already taken massive dives while UCLA and Kentucky have become College Football Playoff contenders.

"It's amazing what has really happened to the game of college football with the NIL and with the transfer portal," admitted Meyer.

NEW: Urban Meyer admits he "misfired" about the impact of NIL and the transfer portal on College Football:

"I thought the rich would get richer. What it’s done is make parity in college football. I’ve talked to many of my colleagues in the last couple weeks. You flip on UCLA and… pic.twitter.com/GPVtItjj4D

— On3 NIL (@On3NIL) October 19, 2026

New Coach Program Shifts

Obviously, one of the shifts of the game is that coaching changes no longer require cycling through multiple classes to create an impact. Both UCLA and Kentucky had losing seasons a year ago, and with new coaches (Bob Chesney at UCLA and WIll Stein at Kentucky), used massive transfer portal classes to flip the roster and culture more or less immediately.

QB Issues and Surprising Struggles

A bit less obviously, teams that figured to have top talent have seen some regressions from existing rosters. Oregon is a special case due to the injury to Dante Moore which completely shifted the arc of their season. But both Texas A&M and Oklahoma had veteran quarterbacks who were highly regarded (Marcel Reed at A&M, John Mateer at Oregon). Both have been terrible this season (11th and 15th of the 15 qualifying SEC QBs in QB rating) and thus, both teams have struggled.

Of course, the impact of parity is likely to be only increased further by the expansion of the College Football Playoff to a 24-team bracket. A 3-loss team reached the 12-team Playoff in each of the last two seasons, so it wouldn't be surprising for 8-4 teams to make the Playoff after expansion.