1 » First, Florida Gators head coach Urban Meyer resigned and the media had sympathy for him and respect for making what they deemed to be a mature and righteous decision. Then, Meyer decided to take a leave of absence instead and has since been met with immense backlash. Starting his column by calling the school “Flip-Flop Florida,” ESPN’s Pat Forde drops some sarcasm on the coach. “Meyer apparently went out to practice and decided that burnout is for losers,” Forde writes, “and his family may or may not come before his players. They had a spirited practice in unseasonably cold weather and, shazam, Urban’s not resigning after all! Just taking a vacation of unspecified length! While looming over the program like a 900-foot shadow!” Don’t worry, there is more, but you need to check out the column for the rest of it.
2 » Jumping on the bus with Forde is CBSSports.com senior writer Dennis Dodd. (This cannot be surprising to anyone, you had to know Dodd was going to write something like this.) Calling Meyer’s change of heart “baffling” in the title of his story because no one has ever changed their mind before, Dodd seems to go back on that opinion later on while still lending himself the ability to criticize. “Maybe it was a simple change of heart.,” he wrote. “Maybe Meyer is going against doctors’ wishes by coming back. Either way there is still room to criticize him for waffling. After sleeping on it, the subject changed from chest pains to being homesick. After careful reconsideration, Meyer walked into a karaoke bar and started belting out Billy Donovan tunes.”
Check out four more BITS on Urban, Addazio, Shelley and more after the jump!!!
3 » Last but not least is Peter Kerasotis of Florida Today who claims Meyer’s hiatus will put the Gators in shaky territory. “If you watched Meyer’s news conference from New Orleans on Sunday, you saw a man constantly contradicting himself,” Kerasotis wrote. “In the process, he went from sounding like the most selfless guy in the world to the most selfish. All in one 24-hour period. When you really get down to it, though, Urban Meyer is putting Urban Meyer first, and you wish he’d just say that.”
4 » Lost to some in the Meyer media storm is the appointment of offensive coordinator Steve Addazio as interim coach. One of three current coaches who were part of Meyer’s inaugural staff in 2005, Addazio has been promoted from tight ends coach to offensive line coach to offensive coordinator in a five-year span. “I believe he’s one of the top coaches in America,” Meyer said Sunday. Addazio’s second biggest supporter is…a high school football coach? Marce Petroccio, who coaches Staples High School and has known Addazio for over 20 years, supports his friend’s latest endeavor. “All I know is that Steve Addazio has been a success at everything he’s ever done,” he said. “He’s a great guy and he’s been a great friend. The intensity Steve brings to practices and games is something that really rubs off on you. He’s been primed and ready to be a head coach. He’s very, very close to Urban, but one thing about Steve is he takes advantages of the opportunities given to him. He’ll do a great job and the kids love him.”
5 » The final perspective on Meyer’s announcement comes from his wife, Shelley. “With an extensive background in health and fitness, [Shelley] can guide her husband on a better path,” writes David Jones of Florida Today. Shelley’s goal is getting Urban to relax, and she has some help with a nursing degree and background in psychiatry. “We’re going to find out [how he can relax],” she said. “He has to learn to, but now that he’s had these signs, as he calls them, he’ll make a really good attempt to do that. I told him I can’t be sitting around the house with him all day,” she joked. “I’m busy. I’ve got things going and I’m moving. So we’ll see what he does, but we’ve got kids that play sports still at home and Nikki’s at Georgia Tech playing volleyball and he wants to go enjoy some of those things.” When will Urban reach the point where he can return to coaching? “I don’t think I can answer that,” she quipped. “We’ve just got to see how he handles his leisure time. I’ve never seen him handle leisure time. That’s like an oxymoron.”
6 » Starting as a true freshman, former Gators linebacker Earl Everett was not able to complete his degree in four years. Suffering injuries while in training camp with the Cincinnati Bengals and as a member of the Atlanta Falcons’ practice squad, Everett later had a successful tryout with the Montreal Alouettes of the CFL but broke two bones in his leg just days after returning from the workout. Florida defensive line coach Dan McCarney, who visited Sumter, SC, and was asking about Everett, found out he was interested in earning his degree and has helped him on the way to completing that goal. After he’s done, Everett hopes to coach and join the Gators as a graduate assistant. “I talked to Coach Meyer a few weeks ago and he asked me if I would like to help out during the spring,” Everett said. “And there is definitely a chance I could become a graduate assistant when I graduate.”
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