Thursday, Nov. 11, 2010

Morris: Meyer wins, but does he do it the right way?

I DO NOT know Urban Meyer. I have sat in interview rooms and listened to him answer questions. He always has seemed a bit bland, and certainly guarded in just about everything he said, but a nice enough man, nonetheless.

What I do know about Meyer is that he is one heck of a college football coach. He won at Bowling Green, for crying out loud. He won big at Utah. Then he took over at Florida and has two titles on his national championship belt in his first four seasons.

For his 10-season career, Meyer owns a remarkable 102-21 record, including a 63-13 mark at Florida. With a win against South Carolina on Saturday, Meyer’s team will play in a fourth SEC Championship Game in his six seasons. He owns two SEC titles.

All that makes you believe Meyer has made Florida fans forget about Steve Spurrier, who first won a Heisman Trophy as a player, then a national championship as a coach for the Gators, but who has been away from Gainesville for nearly a decade.

Not so fast. The sense these days is that, while Meyer might lead Spurrier in the national championship count, he trails in many other areas that count in the eyes of Florida fans. For one, Spurrier ran a clean program during his 12-year run as coach. He also united a fan base.

Whether true or not, the perception is that Meyer’s program is “dirty,” and he gradually has lost some of the Florida fan base. Rather than an attempt to excite Florida fans, Meyer’s comments earlier this week sounded much more like a coach desperately seeking support for his program.

“I’d like to make this one go down in the books,” Meyer said of Saturday’s SEC East showdown in which he called for a “blue out” by fans. “Obviously, the football team’s got to do their part, which is the most important one, but I’d like to see this stadium absolutely out of control.

“The best home field in America, let’s use it to the maximum. Unless people got something else to do, I’d love to see a couple hundred thousand people here, packed house.”

Huh? A plea to fill Ben Hill Griffin Stadium? A “blue out” at The Swamp? Those are gimmicky promotion tactics used at schools where they struggle to fill their stadiums every week. Those are ploys used at schools where fans might not understand the importance of a game such as Saturday’s. Not at Florida.

When Spurrier arrived in 1990 to coach at his alma mater, he immediately stirred up excitement by removing the artificial surface from Florida Field. He also dubbed the Florida stadium “The Swamp,” and brought an exciting brand of football to Gainesville.

But that was during his first year, when he was attempting to shake much of Florida’s championship-free past. Spurrier also inherited a program that over the previous decade had run afoul of the NCAA and had developed a reputation similar to many SEC schools that only occasionally played by the rules.

Spurrier cleaned up Florida. He might have been a loudmouth and a lousy sport to some, but no one questioned whether he ran a clean program. His players generally steered free of trouble, and his program gave more than lip service to academics. At least that was his reputation and the reputation of his program.

Spurrier also coached at a time when Florida State was winning a couple of national championships under Bobby Bowden. But, no matter how successful Bowden was in Tallahassee, Florida fans seemed to take great pride in knowing Spurrier was equally as successful while doing things the right way. It was quite a contrast in styles.

Now that Bowden is gone, replaced by Jimbo Fisher, there must be concern among Florida fans that the roles have been reversed at the two programs. It is too early to determine if Fisher has cleaned up the mess at Florida State, but we know for certain that Meyer’s program has been garnering far too many headlines for all the wrong reasons.

When wide receiver/running back Chris Rainey was arrested in mid-September for threatening to kill his girlfriend, the arrest total in the Meyer era had reached 30 for 27 individuals. Not long afterward, Meyer claimed Florida does “not run a dirty program.”

Meyer’s cry rang on deaf ears when, one month after being suspended from the team, Rainey returned and sparked Florida to wins against Georgia and Vanderbilt. However fair or unfair, the message was sent that winning trumps principle in Meyer’s program.

The Rainey incident came on the heels of Meyer’s confrontation during spring practice with a reporter from the Orlando Sentinel. The reporter’s indiscretion was to accurately quote a Florida player, and Meyer told the reporter he was a “bad guy.”

The incident was videotaped and made public, yet Meyer did not find the wherewithal to apologize publicly to the reporter. He did so privately.

The point is not to diminish Meyer’s stature in the coaching profession. His work speaks for itself on Saturdays. He is respected nationally for bringing the spread option offense to the SEC. At age 45, he has accomplished more than most in his profession.

Rather, the point is to show Meyer has a long way to go to reach Spurrier’s level in other aspects of the program. Meanwhile, at USC, Spurrier has attempted to right another wayward ship he inherited and has done so with mixed results. His players’ arrest totals have diminished greatly during the past couple of seasons, but USC is under NCAA investigation.

Even so, the perception in Gainesville is that Spurrier is the rare coach who can win big while running the kind of program that can make a fan base proud. That is why there is little doubting when Spurrier takes his USC team into The Swamp on Saturday, many Florida fans will long for the days of old when he was leading the Gators onto the field.

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