Urban Meyer and the Notre Dame rumors

Urban Meyer, or Corch Meyers if you’re the esteemed Democratic Congresswoman from Florida, came out this week and emphatically said he will never go to Notre Dame. If you believe that I have a bottle of Tim Tebow’s sweat that will cure cancer to sell you. Paul Finebaum, Saban ass kisser extraordinaire, caused quite a stir last week with his article about Meyer leaving Albert for Touchdown Jesus. He coached there under Lou Holtz, he’s from the Midwest, it’s his dream job, he’s named after a pope, blah, blah, blah. These are the usual reasons that come up when Meyer and Notre Dame are mentioned.
All that aside, you have to wonder why he would ever leave the fertile recruiting grounds of Florida. Florida State and Miami are shells of their former selves. Yeah, South Florida may be a team on the come but they are a long way from reaching the powerhouse status of the Gators. He came into the SEC with the spread offense and shut up the naysayers (including me) who said SEC defenses were too big and fast for it to work. And who in their right mind would leave the warm and sunny winters of Gainesville for South Bend? Urban will.
He revived a Florida program that stagnated under the leadership of Ron Zook (somehow even he was 2-1 against UGA). The Zooker left a full cupboard of talented football players that never would have won the BCS trophy with Mr. Intensity at the helm. Urban took that team to the top and recruited a once in a generation type player in Tim Tebow. Now the Gators enter 2009 as the prohibitive favorites in Tebow’s senior year. If they win it, that will be three in four years. His name will be mentioned with the all time greats, Bryant, Rockne, Hayes, etc. But no matter how much he wins he will always be second in Gator hearts to the Ole Ball Coach. The former Gator quarterback built the formerly mediocre program into the perennial championship contender it is today. Meyer can never compete with his legacy.
He came to the mighty SEC with his “gimmick” offense and has dominated like no one since the legendary Bear. Where’s the next challenge? In South Bend, turning around the most storied program in college football history. Notre Dame has fallen on such hard times that their biggest “victory” the last few years was a last second loss to USC. There have been blowout losses in the regular season, in bowl games, losses to bottom feeders in the regular season and the end of their 43 game winning streak against Navy. Crewcut Charlie Weis is not the coach to restore the Irish to their former glory. He may have amassed enough talent to win 9, maybe even 10, games against a soft schedule this year. If they do it will be off to another BCS game and another blow out at the hands of the second best team from the SEC, Big 12 or Big 10. That may be enough to buy him another year as coach but the administration will be going behind the scenes to gauge Meyer’s interest.
Sure it will cost them plenty to buy out the ridiculous contract they gave Weis halfway through his first season. In these economic times it may not be prudent to pay off Crewcut Charlie and give Urban the kind of contract he will demand, but they are one of the few schools that have the resources to do it. If Weis can’t take them back to the elite they know there is one coach who can. Urban Meyer can and will it’s just a matter of time.