I don’t want to be the guy to state the obvious, but I’m going to be the guy to state the obvious.

Urban Meyer is rooting around for a job again, everyone.

Not just any job. A job with the biggest budget and deepest pockets in all of college football.

A job that — and I know this is going to shock you — currently has a coach who may or may not need to show significant progress in 2023.

During a podcast episode of Urban’s Take with longtime Ohio State beat writer Tim May, Meyer proclaimed — are you ready for this? — about Texas: “Man for man, roster against roster, it’s hard to say Texas doesn’t have the best roster in college football.”

Look beyond the absurdity of this statement, and a statement last month on May’s podcast when Meyer said he was “done” coaching, and understand the Meyer says nothing without intent. Every word has meaning and future implications.

He knows Texas coach Steve Sarkisian, in Year 3 at the most difficult job in college football, can’t afford to roll out another 3rd-place finish in the Big 12 — no matter the talent level.

Texas is 13-12 overall (9-12 vs. Power 5 schools) and 9-9 in the Big 12 under Sarkisian. I don’t need to explain that those numbers don’t cut it for a program that has run through Charlie Strong and Tom Herman since forcing out Mack Brown after the 2013 season.

So what does Urb do? He turns up the heat like only he can, knowing full well that if he says Texas has the best roster in college football — and he knows all about building elite rosters — big donor Texas boosters will use that very statement against Sarkisian if the Longhorns don’t fulfill those unreasonable expectations.

And if that happens, the same booster money that helped jettison Brown, Strong and Herman — the latter after a 7-3 finish in the COVID season, for the love all things Bevo — will be used to start over again. Because Texas can’t limp, all hat and no cattle, into its first season of SEC competition in 2024.

What better way to begin anew (again), than by bowing up and strolling into the biggest, baddest conference with a coach who won 2 national titles the last time he was there.

Urb’s easy sales pitch, beyond what he later accomplished at Ohio State: “Look what Florida has become since I left.”

Don’t think those desperate big-money boosters at Texas won’t buy it. Don’t think they won’t look past Meyer’s disastrous and brief flirtation in the NFL, when the dysfunctional, embarrassing product on the field was surpassed only by Meyer’s reckless behavior off it.

Don’t think they won’t look past the sordid end at Ohio State, where Meyer was caught lying by a university committee investigating his enabling of disgraced wide receivers coach Zach Smith.

Or look past Meyer deleting texts from his phone before Ohio State investigators could search it for clues.

Or look past him telling OSU investigators that he met with Smith’s wife in 2009 while the coach at Florida (where Zach Smith was a staffer), and she recanted domestic abuse claims. Meanwhile, Zach Smith told OSU investigators that Meyer didn’t meet with her.

Or when almost 3 dozen players were arrested in Meyer’s 6 seasons at Florida.

This is who Meyer is. He’s also a ridiculously talented college coach, who’s still a young man (58), and without doubt would win big at Texas.

He knows this, and knows how to manipulate situations to his greater good because, well, how can you turn down a guy with his resume?

It’s easy to ignore Meyer retiring twice at Florida for “health reasons,” and returning less than year later to jump right back into the meat grinder at Ohio State.

It’s easy to ignore the Ohio State cover story (a measly 3-game suspension) that allowed Meyer to, once again, later declare “heath reasons” and retire months later.

It’s easy to ignore Meyer showing up in the NFL, where he was given everything he could possible want to change a failing franchise, and was fired after 11 months — on the heels of allegations that he assaulted his kicker during a practice.

The bar is lowered for those who are elite in their profession, for those who had as many conference championships and unbeaten seasons (4) as career Big Ten losses.

So why not throw out into the ether that Texas has the best roster in college football, when Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State, LSU, Texas A&M and Clemson — at least — have better talent.

Why not pump up Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers, who clearly has ability — but completed 58% of his passes in 2022 and had a TD/INT ratio of 15/6 in 9 starts.

Why not put a big, fat target on the back of the guy coaching the 1 program that just might be desperate enough to hire you — should it need a coach?

It’s as brilliant as it is devious.

And patently obvious.