As soon as Urban Meyer was fired as head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars after just 13 games, people started wondering if and when the coach would return to the cozy confines of college football.
While a path back to television might make more sense, it’s hard to believe that someone like Meyer won’t want a chance to redeem himself on the sidelines and prove to everyone that he still has what it takes to be a winner. He certainly won’t get another chance in the NFL, but we’ve seen plenty of careers get rehabbed quickly in the college ranks.
Meyer was rumored as a potential candidate for the head coaching jobs with USC and Notre Dame during the season, both of which he denied. But that was when he was still committed to making things work in Jacksonville. What about now?
There are some who don’t think Meyer would be able to immediately jump back to the Power 5 level that he was coaching at before the NFL. The viral video incident likely would have gotten him fired by a university, to say nothing of the way he’s damaged his reputation in other ways.
“I don’t see him coming back at that Power 5 level,” said SEC Network analyst Tony Barnhart told The Florida Times-Union’s Gene Frenette. “I could be wrong. My opinion is to come back, he would have to start at a lower level.
“You try a hire like that [with a Power 5 program] and the blowback is going to be substantial. To me, the path [for Meyer] is to coach at a lower level and work his way back up. It’s been such a toxic situation for him in Jacksonville and everybody knows about it. I don’t see a Power 5 program reaching out to him.”
However, an anonymous “longtime Power 5 athletic director” told Frenette that it’s only a matter of time before a program puts morals secondary to winning football games and makes a run at Meyer, who has three national titles to his name.
“It might take two or three years, but yeah, Meyer will reappear,” he said. “What else is he going to do? He’ll go nuts [not coaching]. Plus, he’s a very persuasive guy. I wouldn’t be able to do it, but somebody else will [hire him].
