Urban Meyer delivered a passionate rant on the corrupt culture of college athletics
Former Florida and current Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer spoke about the massive scandal rocking college basketball on his weekly radio show Thursday evening.
“I have plenty of thoughts and opinions, very strong ones,” Meyer said, according to a report from The Columbus Dispatch.
While he was reluctant to share those opinions at first, he eventually said what was on his mind:
“I’ve always been a big proponent of the NCAA. It’s very frustrating to see that things happen and things happen and things happen — some of a very serious nature — and it just disappears because they don’t have subpoena power. You hear the term ‘toothless.’ It’s certainly not because of effort, because we have very good people there.
“I always believed if you willfully and intentionally broke the rule or you lie to the NCAA, you can never coach again. To this day, I still believe that. I’m not talking about mistakes made when you have a rulebook like this (thick). But if you intentionally pay a guy money or willfully have a second cell phone to make illegal phone calls, you’re done. You can never coach again.
“It’s no different than a student-athlete. If a student-athlete lies to the NCAA, they’re finished. So you’re telling me a 50-year-old man has more rights than an 18-year-old student-athlete? Who comes up with that? If you intentionally lie about committing violations, your career is over. You’re not suspended for (only) two games. Some of the silly penalties you have — you can’t talk to a recruit for a week and a half or something like that — no. You’re finished. That will clean up some things.
“I’m in favor of regulation. I’m in favor of strong law enforcement and making people obey the rules in our profession. I don’t know the whole story behind it. I don’t have time. But I know one thing, when you start hearing “federal,” when someone asks you a question and you lie, you’re going to jail. I’m anxious to watch what happens.”
Meyer added that coaches who use burner phones to evade regulations should be banned, the report said. Meyer noted he read a story about the possible prison time those involved in the scandal might face.
“I read one article where you’re eating through a slit (in the cell),” he said.
It’s clear that Meyer is frustrated with the current landscape, and as a man who claims to be all for law and order, he’ll certainly be keeping and eye on how all of this turns out.
The title of this article could be “pot calls kettle black.” Florida was so dirty under his leadership.
We were dirty, no doubt… but it was still nothing compared to what goes on at F$U or O$U… or Bama, Georgia and Auburn for that matter
This is such a classic CFB fan post. You “know” these schools all cheat. You just “know”.
Strong statement. I only wish he went a step further to have this apply to coaches who leave a program citing “time with family and health recovery reasons,” only to become an ESPN analyst and then HC of Ohio State less than a year later…
He did y’all dirty.
And to top it off tell recruits that the culture of the program is toxic and he wouldn’t let his son or daughter go there….lol… let’s also not forget about the affair with the grad assistant… this guy is a piece of garbage, anyone who believes anything that comes out of his mouth is delusional
You guys sure loved him when he was there. His worst known offense was allowing players with behavior issues to play. He wasn’t accused of buying players and he didn’t get the school in trouble with the NCAA. He did bring UF two of their three NC’s. He couldn’t handle the pressure of UF so he bailed. At least he didn’t up at a rival where he could beat you senseless every season.
lol you don’t know who I loved or didn’t love… plenty of Florida fans didn’t like what he did to the program, yes we won 2 titles, but he set us back years and left the program in shambles, still recovering from it….he’s a front runner, he will roll on OSU as soon as Harbaugh beats him a couple times
Set the program back. That’s just comical.
Can’t believe I’m agreeing with you. Yes, there are a lot of Gator fans butt-hurt about the way Urban left us. He was pretty messed up when he quit, but the guy can coach and recruit with the best of them
I don’t think anyone believes Urban gives 2 cents about the law. He needs to have barbwire up around his practice field.
He has made some pretty strong statements this year. He cracked hard on Herman earlier.
(Urban’s entire statement)…
“…unless you’re in the Circle of Trust.”
To be fair, he can comment on such things with some sense of cleanliness. The bad stuff that happened on his watch weren’t really things the NCAA cares anything about.
In other words, he ran a rogue, but compliant program.