DALLAS — Urban Meyer is sitting at a podium inside a swanky ballroom at the Renaissance Hotel near downtown Dallas on Sunday morning answering questions about the upcoming National Championship Game.
For his Ohio State Buckeyes, a young team that overcame the loss of two starting quarterbacks, this bout against Oregon is a chance to author a final page in what’s been a storybook campaign that appeared like it might be derailed at several junctures.
And for Meyer, who has guided this group through these rough seas, it’s a chance to become college football’s alpha coach once more.
“It's a game,” he said, “that I've devoted a good portion of my life to.”
And on this stage, Meyer knows nothing but triumph.
He claimed two national championships in six seasons at Florida. But an obsession with returning to the sport's grandest spectacle drove him mad before leaving Gainesville, where he compiled a 65-15 record, after the 2010 season.
The “pursuit of perfection,” Meyer once said, consumed him.
So in his year away from coaching, he rested. He said he spent time with his family, trying to make up for the days that had been missed turning the Gators in a college football power and himself into one of its modern icons.
But even away from the sideline, Meyer could not escape football.
He worked for ESPN as an analyst. He said he traveled, including visits to Oregon where he went to see what was powering the Ducks and their rise under former head coach Chip Kelly.
The game still tugged at him and when Ohio State came calling in late 2011, Meyer answered.
He wasn’t sure, though, if he’d ever reach the national championship with the Buckeyes.
“I think I just was obviously chomping at the bit to get back in it, but to sit there and say I thought that we could somehow get back to the national title — it's everybody's dream and goal — but it's very complicated and everything has to align perfectly for this to happen. So no, it never really crossed my mind,” Meyer said Sunday morning.
But when Meyer helped ESPN in its coverage of the 2012 National Championship Game between Alabama and Notre Dame in Miami, something inside him changed when he walked onto the field after the Crimson Tide obliterated the Fighting Irish.
“That's the day that I sent that text out to the entire team, every support staff member: ‘The Chase is on.’”
Three years almost to the date, The Chase is finally real. As real as it's ever been.
“That was the moment,” he said. “That's the driving force, why we get up every day. And I just wanted to somehow share that experience with our players and now we are."
For Meyer, it would appear the moment is also a clash of the past and present, a cocktail of memorable triumphs and old demons. Because though the National Championship Game is where Meyer became a star, the lure of the event nearly devoured him.
Even so, Meyer said he's a "freak" when it comes to adorning his house and office with pictures. And if you ever walk into his quarters at the Woody, these still frames tell his story.
"All of a sudden," he said, "you stare at the picture and remember what a great experience it was because it goes so fast.”
Monday night, for better or for worse, affords him an opportunity for another picture to hang on the wall and another moment to reflect on someday.
