Urban Meyer Is History’s Worst NFL Head Coach With An FBS National Championship

Urban Meyer was fired as head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars this morning with a 2-11 record (0.154 win %) and all the stories that have come out about his tenure there so far have reminded me of other college football titans who failed badly in the NFL because they just didn’t get it. None of them seemed like quite as shitty of people as Urbz, who seemed to start lashing out at everyone around him like a movie villain who realizes the tide has turned against him and screams “THIS CANNOT BE, I AM INVINCIBLE!”

Nevertheless, I did a little research. The following includes playoffs.

• Paul Brown, Ohio State ‘42: 163-88-5 (63.7%) 8 postseason appearances (PA) 2 championships (C)
• Barry Switzer, Oklahoma ‘74 ‘75 ‘85: 45-26 (63.4%) 3PA 1C
• Pete Carroll, USC ‘03 ‘04: 161-112-1 (58.8%) 11PA 1C
• Greasy Neale, Wasshington & Jefferson 1921: 66-44-5 (57.4%) 3PA 2C
• Jimmy Johnson, Miami ‘87: 89-68 (56.7%) 6PA 2C
• Clark Shaughnessy, Stanford ‘40: 14-8-3 (56%) 1PA
• Bobby Ross, Georgia Tech ‘90: 77-68 (53.1%) 5PA
• John Robinson, USC ‘78: 79-74 (51.6%) 6PA
• Nick Saban, LSU ‘03 Bama ‘09 ‘11 ‘12 ‘15 ‘17 ‘20: 15-17 (46.9%)
• Dan Devine, Notre Dame ‘77: 25-28-4 (43.9%) 1PA
• Dennis Erickson, Miami ‘89 ‘91: 40-56 (41.7%)
• Gene Stallings, Bama ‘92: 23-34-1 (39.7%)
• Gus Dorais, Detroit Mercy 1928: 20-31-2 (37.7%)
• Steve Spurrier, Florida ‘96: 12-20 (37.5%)
• John McKay, USC ‘62 ‘67 ‘72 ‘74: 45-91-1 (32.8%) 3PA
• Bud Wilkinson, Oklahoma ‘50 ‘55 ‘56: 9-20 (31.0%)
• Charley Moran, Centre 1919: 2-5-1 (25%)
• Howard Schnellenberger, Miami ‘83: 4-13 (23.5%)
• Lou Holtz, Notre Dame ‘88: 3-10 (23.1%)
• Urban Meyer, Florida ‘06 ‘08 Ohio State ‘14: 2-11 (15.4%)

In fact, I had a hard time finding FBS head coaches who had gone on to the NFL and posted worse records. Chip Kelly went 28-35, Kliff Kingsbury appears to have figured it out. Bill Callahan taking a pre-built team (about which he changed nothing, not even the audibles) to the Super Bowl insulates him from similar infamy. Former Syracuse head coach Dick MacPherson went 8-24 with some god-awful Patriots teams that he wasn’t necessarily responsible for. The most damning is Bobby Petrino’s 3-10 record with the Falcons while he conducted a job search. That’s still better than Meyer.

There is, however, one that I did find, Bill Peterson was the head coach at Florida State for ten seasons and was the first coach to really sustain national success for the newly-formed program (restarted in 1947 after Florida State College for Women began admitting men). After going 62-42-11, peaking with a 1964 Gator Bowl victory to post a 9-1-1 campaign, he left to serve as the head coach and athletic director at Rice for some reason, going 3-7-1.

Then he was given a big contract to coach the Houston Oilers and went 1-18 before being fired in his second season.

By all accounts, a good man who was well known for coining bizarre idioms such as “pair up in groups of three and line up in a circle.” May have been hopelessly equipped for the NFL, but at least he’s a substantially less shitty person.

Can’t wait to see where Urban Meyer coaches in 20holy shit i bet texas is gonna do it and he’ll actually say yes this time