Urban Meyer continues to say Notre Dame is his dream job
Even though he’s in the midst of preparing his Florida Gators to do battle with the Oklahoma Sooners in the national championship game, Urban Meyer isn’t backing down from saying that his ultimate dream job is still to coach at Notre Dame.
Four years after spurning Notre Dame to take over the Florida Gators program, Coach Urban Meyer called the Fighting Irish “still my dream job; that hasn’t changed” on a South Florida radio show on Wednesday.
“Once my kids are done, maybe some day I’ll go coach there,” Meyer told 560 WQAM. “I don’t know that. That’s way down the road. Being a father and being able to recruit the best athletes in America within a 5-hour radius of my home, that’s why I came to Florida. I thought we could have a great chance at success.”
“It’s just that time in my life — to be the head football coach of Notre Dame, you’re on a plane recruiting because you recruit San Diego as hard as you recruit New York as hard as you recruit Florida, Texas, Ohio,” Meyer said on the radio. “It’s a national recruiting base. I recruited there for six years, and I spent every night in a hotel in an airport. I’m going to be a good father first.”
Granted he’s not saying that he wants to coach at Notre Dame next year, or the year after or the year after that. But one would think that he would pass on those questions during a time when all of his attention should be on winning another national title.
He shouldn’t be vilified for being completely honest, but I’m not sure it’s ever the right time to talk about another job that 1) doesn’t have a vacancy and 2) you’re getting ready for the biggest game of the year at your current job. The timing just seems a bit off, but that’s not to say this should be made into a big deal.






I don’t think he should be talking about this at all, and especially not right now. It’s not going to make his players feel very good knowing that he’d rather be elsewhere, even in the distant future. And it won’t help his recruiting, either.
If he wants to throw his name out there, he should call up the Notre Dame President (or write him a letter) and let him know that he would be very interested if there were ever an opening at the school. Maybe mention it to the ND booster president as well. That’s it.
I have a somewhat different take. I think he was being very honest – it’s his dream job, but there’s no way he would take it now becuase he wouldn’t want to spend his life on the road in the offseason. It was something I had never considered, so I learned something in the interview. I think he made a shrewd move going to Florida, and now we understand better why he did that.