Urban Meyer just tongue-whipped this reporter:

Here’s the back story (from Rivals.Yahoo.com):

“You’ll be out of practice—you understand that?—if you do that again,” Meyer told the reporter. “I told you five years ago: Don’t mess with our players. Don’t do it. You did it. You do it one more time and the Orlando Sentinel’s not welcome here ever again. Is that clear? It’s yes or no.”

Meyer was reacting to a story posted on the Sentinel’s Web site following Monday’s practice. Thompson was asked what the biggest difference was between Tebow and Brantley.

“You never know with Tim,” Thompson said. “He can bolt. You’ll think he’s running, but then he’ll just come up and pass it to you. You just have to be ready at all times. With Brantley, everything’s with rhythm, time. Like, you know what I mean, a real quarterback.”

Thompson was embarrassed by the remark and the attention it got, mostly because he likes Tebow and never wanted to say anything negative about him.

You can read Fowler’s originally story here.

Meyer is out of line here. The reporter was just doing his job, which was quoting a player (not misquoting, mind you) verbatim. While Fowler wasn’t being protective of Thompson in his piece (not that he has to), he did go on to write that Thompson was “either intentional or he meant to say Brantley’s a more conventional style of quarterback.” When I read the quote, I took it as Thompson was saying that Brantley is a more conventional quarterback and didn’t mean any harm to Tebow. If other media outlets twisted Thompson’s words around and made it sound like he was ripping Tebow, then they’re the ones Meyer should be mad at.

There are some guys that would have been rational about the situation and put the fire out with water. Meyer tried to put it out with a gallon of gasoline and a sledgehammer. He could have made a public statement in defense of Thompson and moved on, but instead he had to be Tommy Tough Tits and rip a reporter to make a point. He handled the situation poorly and here’s hoping he’s ripped because of it.