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Urban F. Meyer (born July 10, 1964 in Ashtabula, Ohio) is currently the head football coach at the University of Florida. He is best known for leading Florida to the 2006 Southeastern Conference Championship and later the BCS National Championship. Previously, as head coach at the University of Utah and Bowling Green State University, he led the Utes and the Falcons each to two of their greatest seasons in school history. He married the former Shelley Mather, a registered nurse, in 1986, and they have three children: Nicole, Gigi, and Nate. EducationUpon graduating from Ashtabula's Saint John High School, Meyer went on to play defensive back at the University of Cincinnati before earning his bachelor's degree in psychology in 1986. He later went on to earn his master's degree in sports administration at Ohio State University in 1988. Coaching careerA two-time National Coach of the Year, Meyer has 20 years of college coaching experience, including six as a head coach. His overall record as a head coach is 61-12 (.831) and he is 33-9 (.786) in conference play. His winning percentage (.831) ranks seventh nationally among active college coaches during the last five years. Meyer's first collegiate coaching position was a two-year stint as a graduate assistant at Ohio State (he had spent one year as a defensive backs coach at Saint Xavier High School in Cincinnati, OH). He then spent the next 13 years as an assistant—two at Illinois State, six at Colorado State, and finally five at Notre Dame. In 2001, Meyer took his first head coaching job at Bowling Green; in his first season there, he engineered the greatest turnaround in the NCAA, earning Mid-American Conference Coach of the Year honors in the process. After two seasons at Bowling Green, he took the job at Utah in 2003. In his first season there, Meyer was named the Mountain West Conference's Coach of the Year with a 10-2 record, the best ever for a coach's first season at Utah. He also earned honors as The Sporting News National Coach of the Year, the first Utes coach to do so. Meyer's success can be attributed to his unique offensive system. The system can best be described as an offshoot of Bill Walsh's famed West Coast Offense, which relied on short, efficient pass routes and receivers making plays after the reception. Meyer's base offense spreads three receivers and puts the quarterback in the shotgun. Then, he introduces motion in the backfield and turns it into an option attack, adding elements of the traditional run-oriented option offense to the old Spurrier "Fun n' Gun" passing game. In 2004, Meyer led the undefeated Utes to a Bowl Championship Series bid, something that had not been done by a mid-major program since the BCS' creation in 1998. In the wake of this accomplishment, both the University of Florida and the University of Notre Dame vied for his services. Despite more ties to the Notre Dame program, Meyer chose to become Florida's head coach for the 2005 season, signing a 7-year contract worth $14 million. He remained at Utah long enough to coach the team to a Fiesta Bowl win over Pittsburgh, capping off the Utes' first perfect season (12-0) since 1930. In 2005, his first season at Florida, Meyer's Gators team finished the season 9-3 (5-3 in the Southeastern Conference) In his second season at Florida, Meyer turned the Gators' fortunes around. He coached the Gators to a 13-1 (8-1 in the SEC) record, with the one loss coming on the road at Auburn, and SEC wins at home against South Carolina, Kentucky, Alabama, LSU; on the road at Tennessee and Vanderbilt, with another win over rival Georgia. After clinching the SEC East, the Gators won the SEC Championship Game on December 2nd over Arkansas by a score of 38-28. Despite the loss to Auburn, Florida was ranked 4th in the BCS before their final game of the regular season against Arkansas. This win, coupled with then second-ranked Southern California's 13-9 loss to unranked rival UCLA on the same day catapulted Florida into the BCS National Championship Game where they routed the heavily favored Ohio State 41-14. It is the first BCS bowl berth for the Gators since the Orange Bowl that capped off the 2001 campaign, and Florida's first national championship appearance and victory since winning the title in 1996. Head coaching record
Awards
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See also
Bowling Green
Falcons Head Football Coaches
Stitt • Jean • Krieger • Snyder • R.B. McCandless • Steller • Ockerman • Whittaker • Perry • Gibson • Nehlen • Stolz • Ankney • Blackney • Meyer • Brandon
Utah Utes Head
Football Coaches
C.B. Ferris • Cummings • Wilson • Holmes • Maddock • Bennion • Norgren • Fitzpatrick • Armstrong • Curtice • Nagel • Giddings • Meek • Lovat • Howard • Stobart • Fassel • McBride • Meyer • Whittingham
Florida Gators Head
Football Coaches
Forsythe • G.E. Pyle • McCoy • Busser • Kline • Van Fleet • Sebring • Bachman • Stanley • Cody • Lieb • Wolf • Woodruff • Graves • Dickey • Pell • Hall • Darnell • Spurrier • Zook • Strong • Meyer
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