BY NICK TAYLOR ND Dan Harralson
Last Wednesday current Oklahoma coach, Bob Stoops, visited his good friend Nick Saban in Tuscaloosa. Many people assumed that the reason for the visit was probably Texas, which is probably true (at least in part since Texas is Oklahoma's rival) and also because of the fact that Saban and Stoops have been good friends since they crossed paths as young men in Ohio (where Stoops grew up.)
Two sources, one a colleague of Nick Saban and the other a media member and friend of THE TIDE TIMES that THE TIDE TIMES has interviewed in the past, informed THE TIDE TIMES that Florida A.D. Jeremy Foley had contacted Bob Stoops gauging his interest in the UF coaching position after learning on December 18th that Coach Meyer was seriously contemplating retiring from coaching due to his health situation. Ironically on December 23rd, the same day that Stoops flew to Tuscaloosa, Urban Meyer flew to San Diego, CA to watch his good friend and Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham play California in the Poinsettia Bowl: and asked him if he would take the Florida job if his health did not allow him to coach anymore.
Our sources claim that Stoops agreed in principal to take the job at UF and that the reason for Coach Meyer's decision to take a leave of absence and attempt to remain the coach at Florida was more related to a concern that Stoops or another coach would come in and change everything he and his players had built. The most important fact in this story may be that the sources also suggested that the only reason Jeremy Foley offered Meyer a leave of absence was merely out of courtesy given his accomplishments as a coach, but that he never expected him to take the offer given his personality. The sources went on to state Foley was a little perturbed with Meyer about all the Notre Dame and other rumors involving the coach which have always made Foley question Meyer's loyalty to the UF program. In closing, I wish to make it clear that the people that I know (that know Coach Meyer including Coach Saban) believe that Coach Meyer is sick and they along with THE TIDE TIMES will keep him in our prayers because some things our bigger than football. We will see how this plays out.
PS for those people interested in this type of thing there is a website called Flight Aware that tracks planes and I am told there is record of Coach Meyer flying out to San Diego on there as well, but we have yet to locate it but
CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO SEE STOOPS FLIGHT RECORD TO TUSCALOOSA...
GOD BLESS YOU COACH MEYER
