Brandon Spikes

COACH URBAN MEYER

THE MODERATOR: We will continue with our final coach of the day, Florida head coach Urban Meyer. Coach, welcome.

2009 SEC Media Day Gators Wrap Up

COACH MEYER: Thank you all for coming. Honored to be here and represent the SEC and the University of Florida. Also here to clear up that mystery that I’m the guy that didn’t vote for Tebow.

Good to be here. Have a very good football team. Very appreciative of the leadership of our program. It’s as good a summer as I’ve been around in coaching as far as dealing with our guys and watching our strength staff work, talking to them about the professionalism. That was the key word throughout the month of January as we prepared for the championship game and December preparing for the SEC game. That has continued through spring practice and the summer.

The key is let’s get to August 6th. I’ve never been more anxious to coach a football team.

With that said, I’ll open it up for questions.

Q. There’s a lot of expectations for your team. What are your expectations for this team?

COACH MEYER: Well, I want to get through these next two weeks. We go real hard for a week, then they have a week off and we start camp. I don’t look much past that.

This time last year, we had some real tough injuries. So we’ve given a lot of thought to how we’re going to practice to keep that edge, to make it a very difficult training camp, yet safe, make sure we can get to the show, and that’s our first game.

Expectation as far as the season, our goals are always the same as it was in 2005, as it is in 2009, and that is we want to do everything we can to get to Atlanta. That’s our whole we wake up every morning to try to achieve that goal.

Q. Would you talk about during this off season, I know you intended to make it the most difficult that Florida has ever had. Are you satisfied they did have that?

COACH MEYER: Well, I’ll find out when we get ‘em. We get them Coach Marotti turns over the team to me on August 6th. According to our players, who I have great confidence in, when they communicate to me, it has, we’re not finished with it. You can usually tell once we get started in training camp what kind of off season they’ve had. We’ve had good ones, not so good ones. According to our players and strength coach, this has been one of the best, if not the best.

Q. With so much depth, how have you kept everyone happy so far?

COACH MEYER: I think we’ve really promoted the competition and we’ve promoted team first. Great things happen when you have an unselfish team. Last year’s was arguably the most unselfish I’ve been a part of. They got to wear a championship ring, compete in the SEC championship game. That’s what we have going for us right now. I really believe our guys love it at Florida. More importantly, I really believe they care for each other. It’s a good situation right now in that locker room, in the weight room, and when they’re together. That’s not easy.

You have 105, 120, 18 to 22 year olds from every stretch, some overrecruited, some underrecruited, some overrated, some underrated. And to keep those guys happy and motivated, that certainly a difficult task. The only way to get it done is with great leadership on our team and our staff does a heck of a job.

Q. Is Riley Cooper returning?

COACH MEYER: I’ll know that today. Is today Wednesday?

Q. Thursday.

COACH MEYER: I’m going to know it by the end of the week, or the weekend, is what I’m hearing.

Q. Everybody knows you grew up idolizing Woody Hayes. In the heart of Alabama, did you ever study Bear Bryant, read anything about him, take anything from his coaching philosophy?

COACH MEYER: Well, a great story, my first season as coach of Florida, walking in that stadium, I’m standing near the goalpost. They flip that scoreboard on. Bear Bryant is right there talking to me. I’ll never forget that. That guy is not supposed to be here any more.

Up north it was Woody Hayes. Had great appreciation. Read the Junction Boys. Obviously followed Bear Bryant. However, Earle Bruce would often talk about Coach Bryant. That was one of his sources of information and sources of expertise. He would often talk about Coach Bryant. Of course, I have. Not to the same degree of Woody Hayes.

Q. You joked about Tebow and the All SEC team. What do you think of the story that’s become this week?

COACH MEYER: First of all, Pat Dooley told me to do that. Second of all, no one laughed, so it wasn’t a very funny joke. Someone asked me if that’s going to motivate Tim. Whoever asks those questions, don’t know Tim. Tim has a lot of things to motivate him. That’s not one.

Didn’t mean much by it.

Q. There’s been some concern about Tebow not getting under center enough in the past, especially concerning his future in the NFL. Do you see he’ll get under center a little bit?

COACH MEYER: There’s a lot made of that. The concern is not from the professional coaches that I have a lot of conversation with. That never comes up. Tim Tebow, we can’t make this more complicated than what it is. If you want Tim Tebow under center, teach him to get under center, he’ll probably do it better than anybody else.

Are we going to place him under center? A lot of it depends on the quality of our tailback. To play an under center offense, you better have a monster back there at tailback that can take the pounding involved in that style of offense. I was involved in an offense I think 15 years. So we know that offense. Coach Addazio was very familiar. A great offense.

It’s very personnel based on your fullback, on your tailback, your tight end. We’ve not had that luxury. This year, if T.J. Pridemore comes back, is a good fullback, we have three quality tailbacks. If they develop, it helps us win a game, we’ll do that.

We are certainly not trying to, because someone said Tim needs to be under center to enhance his draft status. I assure you, him playing under center has nothing to do with his draft status with the programs we talked to. If it did, we would help him because he earned that. It’s not that different.