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National championship coach has 'no desire' to pursue open college football jobs
The College Football Playoff trophy sits on display during the Ohio State Buckeyes National Championship celebration Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

National championship coach has 'no desire' to pursue open college football jobs

Originally posted on CFB-HQ on SI  |  By Alex Weber  |  Last updated Oct 31, 2025 1:01 PM ET

As major college football coaching jobs continue to open up around the country, one legend at the collegiate level, Urban Meyer, has received plenty of attention as programs wonder if they can reel the multi-time national championship winner back into coaching.

On Friday, Meyer's latest comments on a return to coaching surfaced. He appeared to be at some sort of sports bar with a camera on him as a woman asked him point blank if he "would ever consider" a return to coaching, especially with some speculation centered around him thanks to all these open jobs.

"I don't have a desire," Meyer very quickly answered, clearing that question up with a mop, bucket and ringer. For any Penn State or Florida fans who were hopeful for Meyer to emerge from the shadows once again to come lead your program — it ain't happening, at least as of right now.

Meyer was next asked if another coach in the Ohio State realm, current assistant Brian Hartline, is ready to take that leap to become a head coach after a long time under both Ryan Day and Meyer. The latter of those two endorsed Hartline for a head coach's gig, noting that he'd need the "experience" of running his own show soon.

Seemingly, if all goes well and for some reason Ryan Day is no longer the head Buckeye coach down the line, perhaps Hartline can captain the ship in Columbus.

For now, though, he's still lower on the totem pole, but after the success his offensive units have had, especially of late, some of these schools who just crossed Urban Meyer's name off might turn their attention towards him.

As for Meyer, what's interesting about his career is that it doesn't span so many decades. He first became a head FBS coach at Bowling Green in 2001 and then walked away from Ohio State in 2018, his last collegiate post, just 17 years later.

But in those 18 total seasons, Meyer raked in the wins. He never won less than eight games in a regular season, which is simply mind-blowing. He only had three seasons as a power conference head coach where he didn't win 10 games. To cap it off, he also won 12 or more games in NINE of his 18 seasons, which shouldn't require a calculator to figure that's half the number of years he coached. Oh, and he did win two national championships at two different schools.

Nick Saban is clearly the No. 1 college football coach of the 21st Century, but Meyer almost certainly has the No. 2 spot locked up right now, even if he has no desire to ever coach another game.

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This article first appeared on CFB-HQ on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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