Texas Football: Urban Meyer is the coach donors ‘want to lead’ Longhorns

University donors reportedly want former Ohio State and Florida head coach Urban Meyer “to lead” the Texas football program still.

Now that a lot of the chatter has stopped surrounding the pursuit of the Texas football program for the former Ohio State Buckeyes and Florida Gators three-time National Championship winning head coach Urban Meyer, questions are looming about the coaching situation heading into next offseason. Fourth-year Texas head coach Tom Herman got a bit more room to breath for the time being now that the Meyer pursuit appears to be over.

For how long the hot seat discussion will cool down surrounding Herman is yet to be seen. Even winning out this season and finishing off his 2021 recruiting class, just ahead of the start of the Early Signing Period, might not be enough to save Herman if there is a solid coaching candidate out there for Texas athletic director Chris del Conte to pursue next offseason.

Yet at this moment, there is still some chatter going on surrounding what happened between the Longhorns regents/administration and Meyer of late. According to a report from Horns247, the administration and boosters have preferred Meyer to be the top candidate if Texas was to replace Herman in the near future, for a couple of months now.

Here’s a bit more on what that report had to say on the matter of looking back on the Meyer pursuit.

"Still, Meyer is the coach Texas donors reportedly want to lead and as you can imagine, the reports have resulted in quite a bit of commentary from media members and social media users."

Long story short, the pursuit of Meyer to be the next Texas head coach didn’t work out as the regents, boosters, administration, and even the fan base wanted it to. If Texas does want to replace Herman before the start of the 2021 college football season, there needs to be another solid coaching candidate out there that would nearly guarantee that the upward of $25 million buyout for Herman and his staff would be worth it.

The pursuit of Meyer should be considered all but in the books at the moment. It sounds like the boosters still want him to be a candidate heading into next offseason, by a number of indicators, but that’s not a solid plan.

While it’s not the worst idea to at least keep in touch with Meyer to see if his mind changes anytime soon, he shouldn’t be considered a priority target in any actual coaching search. That doesn’t do much for Herman, this program, or the players and commits in it.