'The book's closed': Former Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer says he's done coaching
Urban Meyer has repeatedly downplayed talk of returning to coaching since he was fired during his disastrous 2021 season with the Jacksonville Jaguars in the NFL.
That hasn’t stopped speculation about whether he might be tempted to return to coaching in college.
On Thursday at Ohio State’s coaches clinic, Meyer said his coaching career is over.
“That book’s closed,” he said. “It’s going to be TV and grandfather.”
Meyer won three national championships – two at Florida and one at Ohio State – before stepping down as Buckeyes coach after the 2018 season. His brief stint in Jacksonville was marked by 11 losses in 13 games and several off-the-field issues.
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Meyer, who has four grandchildren, returned to Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff preview show last year.
“Our numbers are good, our team is good and we love doing it,” Meyer said.
Meyer shared a stage Thursday with former Ohio State coaches John Cooper and Jim Tressel and current coach Ryan Day in a discussion moderated by ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit.
Ohio State hired Meyer in late 2011, six months after Tressel was forced to resign because of a tattoo-and-memorabilia scandal. Just as Meyer was settling in, the NCAA hit Ohio State with sanctions, including a bowl ban and loss of scholarships.
“It was nonsense,” Meyer said of that saga. “I can say that publicly now. It was nonsense, what went on with coach Tressel and all that, to give a penalty like that.”
Urban Meyer feared the sanctions
Meyer said he had hired someone with the NCAA to assess what penalties Ohio State might face and was assured they would be minor.
“My original thought was, ‘I didn’t sign up for this,’ ” Meyer said.
Meyer feared the sanctions would set Ohio State back several years. But the 2012 Buckeyes went undefeated and the 2014 team won the national championship.
Meyer went 7-0 against Michigan, including 4-0 against Jim Harbaugh.
“I’ve said this many times,” he said. “I'm not sure there's anybody that's ever respected that rivalry more than I have.”
He said he had someone on staff whose sole job was to study everything the Wolverines did.
Michigan was unranked in three of Meyer’s games against them and was ranked 20th in 2012, 10th in 2015, third in 2016 when the teams had the epic double-overtime game and fourth in 2018.
“If someone said, ‘They're not very good,’ usually that conversation ends quickly because that guy doesn't respect the rivalry,” Meyer said. “That's one of the top programs in America, (Michigan has) a great coach, and it's a great rivalry.”
Michigan has ended Ohio State’s domination in the rivalry with lopsided victories the past two years.
Asked if he was confident that Day will turn the tide again, Meyer said, “No doubt. (There’s) no one better.”