College football coaches don't get more highly regarded than Urban Meyer. In four years at Florida, he's taken two teams (2008's, and 2006's) to national championship games, winning handily in 2006 over an Ohio State squad that had previously seemed unbeatable. Meyer's offense is an inventive, quarterback-reliant spread scheme, and his intelligence on the field has been bolstered by his ability to land top recruits year-after-year. He's as good as they come, that guy.
So we can forgive Notre Dame fans if they're fawning over Urban. Urban's flirtations -- saying that Notre Dame was "still my dream job" -- won't help much:
Four years after spurning Notre Dame to take over the Florida Gators program, Coach Urban Meyer called the Fighting Irish "still my dream job; that hasn't changed" on a South Florida radio show on Wednesday. "Once my kids are done, maybe some day I'll go coach there," Meyer told 560 WQAM. "I don't know that. That's way down the road. Being a father and being able to recruit the best athletes in America within a 5-hour radius of my home, that's why I came to Florida. I thought we could have a great chance at success."
"It's just that time in my life — to be the head football coach of Notre Dame, you're on a plane recruiting because you recruit San Diego as hard as you recruit New York as hard as you recruit Florida, Texas, Ohio," Meyer said on the radio. "It's a national recruiting base. I recruited there for six years, and I spent every night in a hotel in an airport. I'm going to be a good father first."
In other words, don't expect Meyer to ditch Florida any time soon, but maybe, just maybe, he'd be willing to take over for Charlie Weis (or Weis' successor) somewhere down the line. Given the current state of Notre Dame football and the current hatred of their recently retained head coach, maybe Notre Dame fans don't want to be that patient. But if we were them, we would be. Getting Meyer, even years down the line, would be an instant and lasting improvement.
Until then? Weis. Ouch.
