Urban Meyer's infamous "broken" quote

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jdh5484

jdh5484

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Below is the "broken" quote from Meyer re: the program.

"It has to be fixed," he said. "It's broke a little bit right now. But the way you fix it is hard work. When I say broke it's broke because of a constant attrition of coaches who, God bless them, have gone on to be great head coaches. ... You lose five juniors to the NFL draft and you have a little bit of a void in there right now. But it's Florida. We'll be back strong, stronger than ever."
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Meyer stepping down as Florida football coach

There seems to be some revisionist history on this board.

Don't blame the Foley hires of Muschamp and Mcelwain on Meyer. Meyer walk away from a 10 mill contract, the two after him walked away with that much in severance.

Discuss.
 
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Swamp Donkey

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I've pretty much always said Fooley was the root cause of almost all of our problems.
 
SeabeeGator

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Swamp Donkey said:
I've pretty much always said Fooley was the root cause of almost all of our problems.
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No disagreement. Just clarifying your reply.

I like what Foley accomplished with the other sports. Just hate that it was at the expense of football, the one that matters.
 
neteng

neteng

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Well ... he retired himself, rehired himself, and the proceeded to be vacant for a year before retiring again. That kinda broke the program. Had he just left the first time we probably would be a lot different right now. Yeah, that is on Foley as well, but, just like Foley doesn't get credit for hiring Meyer there isn't much you can do when a 2xNC coach comes back the following day and says he doesn't want to step down but just needs a breather in place. A year of him being a ghost AND then when he did retire retain an office in the stadium while a new coach took over doesn't speak volumes to the best way to unbreak a program.

Also ... quoting Meyer as if what he says is even close to being true is laughable.
 
TheDouglas78

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What Meyer said to the public and what he said to recruits he was battling UF for are two different things.
 
divits

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That’s not how he put it to the recruit we both were trying for when he was at OSU. Forget the kid’s name but he was a receiver and ended up at Maryland I believe. In the pros now.
 
soflagator

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It's crazy that jdh5484 started this thread, because I was actually thinking about this earlier today. I don't doubt that he took more concrete shots when he was recruiting against us, that's just part of the business. But the "broken" comment has always been taken way too far in bashing Meyer. We were certainly going to be in a rebuild mode for a year or two and had some locker room issues. But as jdh points out, making this appear that whoever took this job was staring at some insurmountable task to get UF winning--exactly one season removed from an undefeated regular season--is insane. The defense alone was good enough to win 8-9 games. The right coach would've undoubtedly righted the ship fairly quickly and been fine. As it is, we(or Foley) arrogantly approached the situation and struck out twice.

Mullen took over a team that lacked strength, toughness, leadership, and an identity. A dozen players had been involved in cc fraud, which he had to sort out, and approximately half the roster would normally be at B-level power-5 teams, if not a G5 program. Recruiting was in the toilet and we were on the losing end of virtually every rivalry in recent years. That's about as broken as it gets. And he won 10 games. Any suggestion that Muschamp inherited a situation even close to that is, as was said, revisionist history.

The program wasn't broken. The UAA and its leader were. And that had nothing to do with Meyer.
 
Sec14Gator

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Here's the follow up regarding Diggs. It was in the article about Urban basically disappearing towards the end and players taking over the program. But, the "Broken" comment being referenced is still the same. The connection to Diggs was drawn by the author, though the Diggs quote isn't any better.

From champs to chomped: How Urban Meyer broke Florida football

Multiple sources told Sporting News that Meyer—who won two national championships in six years at Florida and cemented his legacy as one of the game’s greatest coaches—told the Diggs family that he wouldn’t let his son go to Florida because of significant character issues in the locker room.
. . .
It was Meyer who declared the Florida program “broken” at the end of his last regular season game in Gainesville in November of 2010.
. . .
Meyer denies allegations that he cast Florida and its players in a dark light when he spoke to the Diggs family, and said, “I love Florida; I’ll always be a Gator. My motives were pure as gold when I left. We left Florida because I was dealing with health issues that I’ve since learned how to control.”

But multiple former players and others close to the program say the timing of his departure was also tied to the roster he left behind
 
78

78

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Meyer was referring to his garage remote.
 
Thick&ThinG8r

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Anyone that doesn't believe that two smurf running backs, Brandon James as a starting WR and John Brantly as starting quarterback wasn't the biggest part of Meyers broken program is crazy.
 
Gator Fever

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Not really sure what happened except Meyer letting the inmates run the asylum starting around 2009. Heck he had a Top 3 recruiting class in 2007, 2008 and 2010.
 
soflagator

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Thick&ThinG8r said:
Anyone that doesn't believe that two smurf running backs, Brandon James as a starting WR and John Brantly as starting quarterback wasn't the biggest part of Meyers broken program is crazy.
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James was gone. And yes, we had two small backs. But they were the same small backs that had played very well in 2008 and 2009. It was only the new guy's insistence that we suddenly change UF's identity that caused them to be total fish out of water. And that's also not counting Gillislee and Mack Brown who were on the roster, both of whom went on to play in the league.

I'm not knocking you, but that's kind of the point the OP was making. We hear things so many times over and over and then start remembering a different version of what was actually the case.

WR's were lacking talent admittedly, and we can definitely agree on Brantley. But again, there have been many worse cases of a new coach inheriting a mess that aren't considered some catastrophic undertaking. It's been sensationalized greatly.
 
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