A year ago, Urban Meyer was making plans for getting his first-ever class of NFL draft picks up to speed, while also publicly declaring disappointment for not getting Kadarius Toney in round one. Now, Meyer is getting ready to go back to a prior place of employment.
Richard Deitsch of TheAthletic.com reported on Saturday night that Meyer and Fox are “deep in negotiations” regarding a potential return by Meyer to Fox’s college football coverage. As Deitsch explains it, Fox doesn’t regarding Meyer’s spectacular failure in Jacksonville as an impediment, even though they know they’ll be dragged on social media.
Some would say it wasn’t just the failure that’s a problem but the way it unfolded. For Meyer, it wasn’t just an inability to win by a non-stop three-ring circus of embarrassments that ultimately raised real questions as to whether he was fit to be a football coach in the first place, given the manner in which he interacted with assistant coaches and players in Jacksonville. Not to mention his much-publicized abandonment of his post after a Thursday night game in Cincinnati, followed by the emergence of videos that nearly ended his tenure before it even hit the bye week.
Meyer recently told Tim May that Meyer plans to return to Fox. His spot on the network’s Saturday pregame show was filled by Bob Stoops, who has since taken a job with the XFL. So there’s an opening on the Big Noon Kickoff program — a title that has new meaning given the kicking-the-kicker allegations that ultimately got Meyer fired by the Jaguars during his one and only NFL season.