Meyer Believes He Will Be Back At Florida This Fall

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At his press conference, Urban Meyer said that he will coach “full speed ahead” during Sugar Bowl week and then Steve Addazio will take over the UF program in the immediate future.

Several years of chest pains were the reason for Meyer’s initial decision to walk away.  (Read this piece for a better understanding of Meyer’s serious health issues over the years.)

Meyer and Jeremy Foley both said that the leave of absence approach is a good move for both the coach and the university.  They say it will give Meyer a chance to change the way he does business.

Asked why he decided to reconsider his decision to step down, Meyer said it was his players.

Meyer was asked if he had talked to Billy Donovan (who also flip-flopped on a decision to leave Florida) and he responded as follows:

“Florida’s a great place. … And I’m sure Billy feels the same way.  That we’ve kind of created a monster at Florida where we had some great success and Florida deserves that.  And you feel an enormous amount of — I don’t want to say pressure — but you want to do right by your players and you want to do right by that school.  And they deserve right.”

And here’s the biggie: asked if in his “gut” he believes he will coach Florida in the fall, Meyer answered, “I do in my gut believe that will happen.”

That’s certainly an interesting change of heart for a man who told a reporter last night that his daughter had said she “had her dad back” when he told her that he was stepping down.
 
She won’t have him back for long it seems.

It’s also interesting that Meyer chose not to answer when asked if doctors had advised him to walk away from coaching.  If they hadn’t, he would have surely said “no” to that question.  So I think we can assume that at least one doctor HAS told him to walk away.

But UF president Bernie Machen laid out the leave of absence idea and that has convinced Meyer to reverse field and not hang up his whistle just yet.

As I wrote in my last post, here’s hoping the coach does not have any serious health episodes when he returns.  And Machen and Foley had better hope like hell that they don’t someday have to explain to Meyer’s family why they pushed him to stay onboard despite a cyst on his brain, blackouts, migraine headaches and severe chest pains.



So the remaining questions are as follows:

1.  When — or will — Meyer return to Florida?  He believes prior to the fall, but who knows?

2.  How will recruiting go under Addazio?  You can bet that opposing schools will try to convince Gator recruits that they don’t want to step into a situation that is so fluid.

3.  How will Florida’s staff look heading into 2010?  Do UF coaches start to leave?  Do they stay onboard with an eye on moving up the food chain?

4.  How does this affect the hiring of a new defensive coordinator?  (Meyer said he and Foley have yet to decide who will make staff hires.)