BOOM
2025 cornerback Jordyn Woods flips from Cincinnati and commits to Ohio State.
Quietly, Urban Meyer had thought about coaching in the NFL for a long time. Over the past year, Meyer began seriously considering it, and started putting in the work to prepare himself for the possibility.
During his introductory press conference as the Jacksonville Jaguars’ new head coach on Friday, Meyer said he started getting phone calls from NFL teams about 10 years ago, “and it made you think.” He even met with some coaches and general managers from around the league – meetings he requested remain secret – to pick their brains on what life in the league is like.
“I’ve had some very good friends in the National Football League that I would sit down and have very confidential conversations with,” Meyer said. “Coaches, even some GMs about just what it’s like.”
Before this year, Meyer never seriously pursued an NFL coaching job. After leaving Florida at the end of the 2010 season, Meyer took a year off from coaching before returning to the sidelines as Ohio State’s coach in 2012, then spent seven years with the Buckeyes before retiring again in 2018.
Over the past two years, while Meyer worked as a college football analyst for Fox Sports and as an assistant athletic director of athletic initiatives and relations at Ohio State, he repeatedly said publicly that he thought he was done coaching. Yet there was always a belief among many that Meyer, still just 56 years old, would eventually feel compelled to return to coaching, and he confirmed that to be the case on Friday.
He wasn’t just going to jump at any chance to return to coaching, though. Meyer still doesn’t plan on ever coaching at the collegiate level again, believing those days are behind him, but he believes the opportunity he has in Jacksonville is one where he can be a successful NFL coach.
“Some college opportunities showed up and made you start thinking,” Meyer said. “There’s not a day that goes by that you see that grass, you see the team, you see a locker room and you (don’t think about coaching). And then you start thinking about the quality of life, etc., and the comment I made is it would have to be perfect.
“College, I just don’t plan on doing it. I don’t see that happening. NFL has always been an intrigue. Had some opportunities in the past but just wasn’t the right time, and wasn’t the right situation. We have to be in position to go win a game, and I believe this is the place.
“I felt like this was not only the right time for me to return to coaching, but the right place in Jacksonville.”
In order to prepare for the possibility of coaching in the NFL, Meyer said he interviewed many of his former players from Ohio State and elsewhere who are now or have been in the NFL in order to get their perspective on what it takes to be successful in the league. Meyer said he also spent a lot of time over the past year studying the NFL salary cap and roster management, wanting to make sure he was “very well-educated” on how to build a team.
“Players are the ones that play the game, and I really value the guys that I have in the NFL. Hours upon hours I did work on this, and I spoke to (Jaguars owner Shad Khan) about that,” Meyer said. “That didn’t start until this past year, when probably around December, it was about a six-month journey that I went on and had very in-depth detailed conversations with some players. So I’ve always considered (coaching in the NFL), always thought about it but not until the last 12, probably 13 months now has it been a (serious consideration), because I just wanted to be educated.”
Jacksonville wasn’t the only NFL team interested in potentially hiring Meyer as head coach, as he reportedly had conversations with the Los Angeles Chargers, too. Even though the Jaguars went 1-15 last season, though, he is confident about their ability to become a winning franchise as they enter an offseason in which they have the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft and are projected to have the most salary cap space in the league.
“I think it’s primed to put together a good team,” Meyer said. “I am not gonna jump into a situation where I don’t believe we can win. I won’t do that. And I think everything that’s here in place, now we gotta do it.”
One of the big questions surrounding Meyer as he makes the jump to the NFL is how he will handle losing games, since that’s certainly going to happen more often with the Jaguars than it did at Ohio State, and he acknowledged that will be a difficult part of the transition for him. But he also recognizes that’s just a reality of coaching in the NFL no matter how good a coach you are or how good your team is.
“You’re in a league that is designed to be .500,” Meyer said. “(New England Patriots coach Bill) Belichick, one of my great friends and a person I’ve always admired, he’s the best of all-time, and you’re talking about a 67% winning percentage. The league is built to be .500. I coached at Utah where we were picked to lose most of our games. I coached at Bowling Green where we picked to lose most of our games. And then Florida and Ohio State, you’re picked to win most of the games. So that’s the biggest challenge is looking across the field and saying, ‘They’ve got what you got,’ or sometimes, they’ve got more than you’ve got.”
The other big question surrounding Meyer is his health, given his well-documented issues with headaches that led to his decision to step down as Ohio State’s coach two years ago. He says he and his doctors have discussed preventative measures to help him deal with those headaches more effectively, though, and that he is going to manage himself accordingly.
“It’s something I’m gonna be very conscientious of, it’s something I’m gonna watch very closely,” Meyer said. “I will be the head coach, but I’m gonna hire great coaches that are gonna be expected to do their job. I’m not gonna be running around like a nut on the practice field. Those days are gone. I know what it’s supposed to look like, and I want to be very demanding of everyone, but it’s something I’m gonna watch very closely. I had that surgery in 2014 that really helped things. Just something to watch very closely.”
Those concerns aside, Meyer said he “can’t wait“ to get started and begin his career as an NFL coach. And he says his family, which also played a significant role in his decisions to leave coaching twice previously, is “all in,” too.
“They’ve all got their Jaguar T-shirts in,” Meyer said. “They’re all grown now, so that’s the biggest difference. To me, that’s a huge difference. You’re not missing as much.”
