Trib: UF's Meyer, USF's Holtz: old pals, new rivals

[USFishin]

UF's Meyer, USF's Holtz: old pals, new rivals

By JOEY JOHNSTON  | The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 6, 2010

Updated: 06:44 am

When the coaching relationship began, even though they never worked on the same staff, there were late-night X-and-O exchanges at the grease board during regular visits. While climbing the ranks, one would inevitably call the other to talk through an impending job offer.

Skip Holtz and Urban Meyer have been close friends for two decades.

Saturday afternoon at Florida Field, when Holtz's University of South Florida Bulls meet Meyer's Florida Gators, they will stand on opposing sidelines for the first time.

"It's going to be neat," Holtz said. "Ever since I met Urban, I thought he was going to be a really, really special coach."

In fact, Holtz might be the guy who jump-started Meyer's ascension into the big-time.

It was the national coaching convention, early 1996. Holtz, just completing his second head-coaching season at Connecticut, knew his father, Lou, needed a receivers coach at Notre Dame.

Skip: "Dad, you should really talk to Urban Meyer."

Lou: "No, I'm set on what I'm going to do."

Skip: "I'm telling you, Urban is a guy you need to meet."

Lou: "Look, I don't want to talk about it any more."

And the rest is covert history.

Skip Holtz asked his father to meet him for breakfast the next morning before heading to the airport. Then he made a call: "Urban, come to breakfast at 7 a.m."

Voila!

Holtz introduced Meyer to his father, then quickly scurried away, saying he had to finish packing.

"Skip got me hired at Notre Dame," Meyer said. "I had people call (Lou Holtz) and it was like, 'Coach said there's no interest.' He didn't want to have breakfast with Urban Meyer, not at all. But we hit it off pretty good."

"Look, I didn't get Urban the job," said Holtz, chuckling at the memory, after a late-night USF practice. "I gave him the stage to sell himself, which he obviously does quite well and has done many times since then."

Holtz still remembers his father's dazzled expression when they left for the airport.

"He said, 'Wow, Skip. That is quite an impressive young man,' " Holtz said.

Meyer parlayed his five-season stint on Notre Dame's staff into the head-coaching jobs at Bowling Green, then Utah and finally Florida, where he has won two national championships.

Holtz, meanwhile, left UConn after the 1998 season to help his father resurrect South Carolina's program. Six years later, as he made the four-hour drive from Columbia, S.C., to Greenville, N.C., in late 2004 â taking over as East Carolina's head coach â Holtz said he remembers calling Meyer, who was deliberating over leaving Utah for Florida (or Notre Dame).

The Holtz-Meyer connection began in 1989, when Holtz left his position as receivers coach for Earle Bruce's Colorado State Rams, then was replaced by Meyer.

"We kind of passed in the night," said Holtz, who joined his father's staff at Notre Dame.

But Holtz, upon returning for regular visits to Fort Collins, Colo., immediately hit it off with Meyer, who was just four months younger and coached the same position group.

"The results for both guys have just been tremendous," said Bruce, who now lives in Columbus, Ohio, and serves as a radio analyst for Ohio State football. "Two differing personalities, but they both had great rapport with the players. They recruited with intensity and really kept after the top prospects. These guys were winners. That was clear. And it's clear today."

Bruce saw it.

So did Lou Holtz.

"I can say it for Urban Meyer and I can say it for Skip â and not just because he's my son," said the elder Holtz, now an analyst with ESPN. "These are complete coaches. What Urban has done speaks for itself. And as long as I've known Skip â which is much of his life â I've never seen him negative. He has always been upbeat.

"I was more emotional, almost irrational and that comes from emotion. He controls that. He's better dealing with people than I am and probably better at dealing with a team than I am. I drove people. He leads them."

The elder Holtz said his son now has the opportunity to produce championships on a national stage â just like Meyer.

"Competing against the best in the country is a desire most coaches have if they're confident enough," the elder Holtz said. "Look, if West Virginia doesn't lose to Pitt in the last game (in 2007), they were playing for a national championship. Last year, if Colt McCoy throws the ball 2 yards further, Cincinnati is playing for it. Don't think the national championship can't come out of the Big East.

"Skip's program has great potential. I mean, it's in Florida."

Just like Meyer's program, two hours up the road in Gainesville.

"You don't get better competition than the Florida Gators and I'm really looking forward to it," Skip Holtz said. "Urban being there, it's special. I think back to all the time we spent together, talking about philosophies and values, and now we finally get a chance to play each other. I really can't wait."

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[NewEnglandBull]

Enough of this love-in crap. Screw the gators! Go Bulls!!!!

[bullwark]

Wow, never knew that story.  Great Article.

[IncrediBULL]

I really liked this article.  Great stuff.

[SRQ]

Joey Johnston is the Trib's jewel.

[Big4]

Yeah, Lou is a big supporter of Meyer.  Doesn't surprise me that Skip had something to do with it. 

[dabull80]

Does this mean I have to stop thinking of Urban Meyer as a pompus jerk ?

[Apis Bull]

Does this mean I have to stop thinking of Urban Meyer as a pompus jerk ?

No, not at all.

[Big4]

Hey that's Mr. 2-time national champion pompous jerk to you!  >

[deters-]

Hey that's Mr. 2-time national champion pompous jerk to you!  >

We're 1-0 versus him maybe we can continue the streak  ;D