Urban Meyer provides update on his potential return to the Florida Gators

Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier is on a seat that may be one of the most scorching-hot in the history of the Florida Gators after a 1-2 start in his third year in Gainesville. Going into 2024, Napier’s first two seasons with the Gators were both losing campaigns and he had a combined record of 11-14. With that being said, optimism surrounded the program heading into his third year that things may start looking upward for a program that has seen three head coaching changes over the last decade.

While the Gators have had a few successful seasons since the exit of former head coach Urban Meyer in 2010, those have been spotty at best. The Gators’ last season which many would deem as a success was an 11-2 campaign under Dan Mullen in 2019. Since then, the program has been on another steady decline that they saw before Mullen’s arrival.

For Napier, it is not necessarily that they are losing games in 2024 as the Gators were listed as having the toughest schedule in the country pre-season, but the way the Gators look in the losses. In the first two games against FBS opponents in the Miami Hurricanes and Texas A&M Aggies, the Gators have amassed only 562 yards of total offense and have been outscored by a combined 74-37.

Needless to say, these stats pretty much tell the story on the call for change. Again, it is not that the Gators are losing, but how they are losing that is the cause for concern.

With potential firings and coaches on the hot seat comes speculation over who the next head coach of a program will be, and the Gators potential vacancy is no different. Names that have surfaced that are familiar are Jedd Fisch, Lane Kiffin and Urban Meyer. Meyer of course coached the Gators previously as mentioned and won two national championships in his six seasons with the school.

Although Meyer’s success seemed to come with some negativity surrounding the program as well, the success on the field seems to be something Gator fans at this point are more starved for, and willing to deal with potential negative impacts that go along with it. Although the fans and administration may be open to it, Meyer is not necessarily.

What did Urban Meyer say about coaching the Florida Gators for a second time?

Meyer recently appeared on The Triple Option podcast shooting down the possibility of returning to Florida saying, “that ship has sailed.” Well, that pretty much settles it. Even if the Gators reach out to Meyer to gauge his interest, at least they have a pretty clear direction from the start that there will not be much of any interest. This should allow them to focus a more targeted search on other potential coaches to replace Napier.