Sporting News: How Urban Meyer "broke" the Florida football program

The running joke around the SEC is that the Florida athletic department is known as "The Firm."

 

As a sidebar I can't believe that Stephon Diggs chose Maryland over OSU or Florida. The kid is from Maryland but still. In trying to find out where the kid was from I found this tidbit:

"Friday, Diggs sent out a racially offensive tweet regarding New York Knicks star guard Jeremy Lin: "Everybody need to get off Jeremy Lin egg roll and dumplings he's good though."

Maybe Meyer should be glad that Diggs chose Maryland.

 

Yeah, but maybe it's because Tebow was a one-man circle of trust. He got more preferential treatment than Harvin and the other guys in the circle put together. Let's put it this way: No Florida player before or since has had their father allowed to attend any practice he wanted.

 

Foley would be better off gradually setting him up to get booted. Muschamp = Ray Goff II

 

Not that Foley's job would ever be in danger, but going 1 for 3 in football coaching hires would be pretty bad. He didn't hire Spurrier. Zook, Meyer and Muschamp.

I liked the Muschamp hire at the time, but if he has another season like he did last year, he may not survive it.

 

There was a stringent test to get into the Circle of Trust: Have you ever masturbated?



God, these tin-hat dictators.

 

There's a small faction of Florida fans that won't give him credit for the Meyer hire, either. Meyer knew the school president, Bernie Machen, pretty well.

 

Meyers program was actually called "The Champions Club" and was not a secret. You made membership by performing on the field and in the classroom. It got you steak instead of hot dogs and top shelf Nike gear instead of hand me downs.

 

Well, here's a piece from Pat Dooley from 2009. Meyer doesn't explicitly mention the "Circle of Trust," but I'd also be willing to bet Dooley didn't just pull that out of thin air, either.

Link: Gators auditioning for "Circle of Trust"

I haven't read Meyer's book, but I've heard there are a handful of references to the "Circle of Trust" in there, as well.

 

Exactly what this reminded me of haha.

I, too, think the piece is lacking without something from Tebow. I want to know how he worked within this madness and exactly what the deal was. He could have at least tried to contact him, if nothing else, not to see what Tebow said, but to see what he DIDN'T say, if that makes sense.

In all, this story isn't a big deal. I'm sure this is a dime a dozen in college athletics, a yawner. It's entertaining, but not too revealing.

And are we really surprised Tebow got preferential treatment?