Texas Football: Longhorns pursuit of Urban Meyer ‘appears over’

Bad news arose for the Texas football coaching search foundation on Dec. 6, with the report that the Urban Meyer pursuit could be over.

News that felt like it was coming soon for the Texas football program, but a lot of fans on the Forty Acres definitely didn’t want to hear, is the report that the former Ohio State Buckeyes and Florida Gators three-time National Championship winning head coach Urban Meyer would not have traction. According to a Horns247 report on Dec. 6, “Texas’ flirtation with Urban Meyer appears over” after a couple of months of trying from the regents and administration.

Although the report does mention that no formal offer was never made by Texas to Meyer. It’s hard to tell why that might be, but Meyer just not having enough interest to return to the college football coaching ranks might’ve won the day.

Here’s more on what this report had to say on the matter.

"Meyer was contacted at that point and has been aware of interest from Texas since October, sources told Horns247. Despite rumblings that Texas would pay Meyer an annual salary in excess of $10 million as well as meet a list of demands from Meyer, UT officials say privately there was never a formal offer made."

It is interesting that it sounds like the Longhorns regents, administration, boosters, etc. didn’t make a bigger push to make a formal offer to Meyer. But as I mentioned previously, there’s no telling what the hurdles might’ve been to try and lure his interests to become the next Texas head coach.

Meyer got out of coaching around the conclusion of the 2018 college football season when he was having headaches and pain associated with an arachnoid cyst in his brain. He handed the reigns over to current Ohio State head coach Ryan Day around the end of the 2018 campaign.

Now Meyer is working as an analyst with Fox College Football, and appears to be pretty happy with what he is doing. It might still be a while, or he might never, want to come out of retirement to coach at the college level again.

Texas now carries a record of 6-3 (5-3 Big 12) under fourth-year head coach Tom Herman this season, after their dominant 69-31 victory over the Kansas State Wildcats on the road on Dec. 5. With this Meyer news surfacing, Herman’s job security appears to be a bit more solid for now.