A Jersey Guy: Meyer will be back

Urban Meyer is out of the NFL, but he isn't done

If you cut to the chase with Presidents of major FBS schools, their bottom line is to be profitable during the week and successful on the weekends.

Which is why the show that Alabama and Georgia put on in the Southeastern Conference championship game a few weeks ago in Atlanta and may put on again in Indianapolis next month is the ultimate goal.

Alabama coach Nick Saban is at the top of the pyramid of success and Georgia coach Kirby Smith wants to be invited to the same party.

They are part of the elite of the college football world coaching world.

Saban is almost a unique force of nature, breathing a different oxygen.

Until he nibbled on what Saban likes to call the rat poison of the NFL, Urban Meyer was following the same path

 Meyerr, who was fired 13 games into his NFL career with the Jacksonville Jaguars, is basically radioactive--right now..

The pundits and the critics are firing at will saying that Meyer's career as a coach is now over. No one will touch him after a season long debacle missteps as the Jaguars head coach, both on and off the field.

"No president  will touch him because his actions will reflect on the president as well as the school'' is the phrase used in the feeding frenzy  surrounding the announcement this week that another college coach had failed in an attempt to climb to the next level.

Poppycock.

People have short memories and selective amnesia when talking about a coach who was not just a good college coach, but a great college coach.

Meyer was that at Utah, where he first jumped onto the national stage, at Florida where he won a pair of national championships and and at Ohio State, where he won another national championship.

He knows how to recruit, he knows how to build a roster and the times that I have witnessed his games, he knows how to manage and make adjustments.

But those are skills have some costs and in the case of Meyer, it is one of a character, which in Meyer's case has shown itself time after time.

Although he won national championships at both Florida and Ohio State, both programs were filled with off the field controversy, which included character issues of the Florida player--Convicted murderer Aaron Hernandez  played for Meyer at Florida.

Urban Meyer is many things, but in my dealings with him and watching his career unfold and now, at least temporarily, implode, he is not a good guy. 

That, of course, has nothing to do with big time college football, which is just a touch below the NFL in terms of objectives.

It is big business, motivated by profits, with the prime goal to simply win.

And that is what will dictate Meyer's future as a college coach. 

Not this year, but by the middle of next season, there will be the usual assortment of losers at major FBS programs.

Changes will be made and searches will begin.

Meyer will again be in the headlines, although he will have to do some fence mending.

Watch for a mea culpa event--perhaps on Fox Sports, where Meyer bided his time between coaching jobs.

Watch out for an interview, conducted by Tom Rinaldi, a Meyer favorite, where he claims human frailty and asks for forgiveness as he rebuilds his career.

There are some curious issues which he must address--such as the medical problems which he used as a retirement issue from Florida, which mysteriously disappeared when he took the Jaguars job.

All of that will be worked out over the next several months.

But the end of his coaching career?

Not buying it.