As Urban Legends Go, This One Sucks

Jacksonville isn’t actually a city. It’s 874 square miles of suburban sprawl and is best known for not being known for anything of consequence – except for another suburban: Urban Meyer.

The coach of the Jaguars, just four games into his NFL career, has been sort of lap-danced onto sports-page headlines, resuming a life whose controversies extend back to his six seasons at the University of Florida.

After the Jags lost to the Bengals in Cincinnati, the fourth loss in a winless streak that stretches 19 games back to their second game in 2020, Meyer says he went to Columbus (remember, he used to coach at Ohio State) to visit his grandchildren while the Jaguars headed home. The family went to dinner at a restaurant named Urban Meyer’s Pint House where a woman in a tank top, to use a football term, put her backfield in motion.

“Funny,” Meyer said. “I was just signaling, pointing to the glass of milk I was holding, that I wanted a refill and she must’ve thought I was asking her what time it was or for directions to the men’s room or something and the next thing I knew she was kind reversing herself into my lap and scrunching back and forth and, I guess, trying to get comfortable and she said her name was Crystal or Brandy or Tawny or Ginger or Diamond or Charity or Destiny or Chastity or Bambi or something and I reached down to sort of move her away but she didn’t seem to understand, and obviously this whole thing has been blown way out of proportion.”

Meyer said he apologized to his family because he mistook the Pint House for the Waffle House just up the street where he doesn’t have to ask anything “because it has big clocks on the wall and I know where the men’s room is.”

Jaguars owner Shahid Khan expressed “profound disappointment in Urban’s decision not to invite me to his family dinner. From the video I’ve seen, he clearly needed assistance. I’ll deal with him directly before Sunday’s loss to the Tennessee Titans so that, should a similar incident arise, he’ll know to call me to come and handle it.”

During Meyer’s six seasons at the University of Florida, at least 31 players were arrested, many on various drug charges, others for theft or violence.

“Oh, they were just kids having fun,” Meyer said. “I made sure to straighten them out as soon as I got the courts in Gainesville to eliminate their jail time and had the boosters pay their fines. Y’know, a couple of national championships can work wonders.”

He left Florida after the 2010 season for what he called “health reasons,” and a year later was healthy enough to take over at Ohio State and hire his former UF graduate assistant, Zach Smith, despite knowing Smith had abused his pregnant wife.

Meyer excused his decision, saying, “I had nothing to do with her getting pregnant.” Smith was finally fired in 2018. After that season Meyer retired as OSU’s coach for what he called “health reasons.”

And this past Feb. 11, he hired former Iowa strength coach Chris Doyle for the same position with the Jaguars despite accusations by Hawkeyes players that Doyle had made racist remarks. He resigned Feb. 12, “although why, I don’t know,” Meyer said.

How long he’ll last in Jacksonville is anyone’s guess, especially now that the University of Southern California head coaching job is up for grabs. “Y’know,” he said, “my back’s beginning to bother me and I’ve been getting these headaches. Might be wise for me to call it quits for health reasons.”