Kyle Whittingham Reacts To Urban Meyer’s NFL Demise

When Urban Meyer left Utah after the 2004 season, his defensive coordinator Kyle Whittingham took over and has held the job ever since. After Meyer’s failed NFL experiment, his former assistant has some thoughts on what happened.

Speaking to the media ahead of the Rose Bowl, Whittingham said that he still has “all the respect in the world” for Urban Meyer. He believes that Meyer’s NFL undoing was a series of events that “just seemed to snowball and kind of get away from him.”

“I can’t speak for what went on there. It just seemed to kind of snowball and get away from him,” Whittingham said.

Whittingham spoke glowingly about Meyer’s attention to detail while he was at Utah. He praised Meyer for “mapping out the entire year” and never leaving anything to chance.

“His complete organization of the entire program, on a day-to-day basis, mapping out the entire year. Nothing was left to chance,” Whittingham said.

Kyle Whittingham says he has "all the respect in the world" for Urban Meyer, and that "it just seemed to snowball and kind of get away from him" in the NFL.

— Griffin Strom (@GriffinStrom3) December 31, 2021

But what worked for Urban Meyer at Utah, Florida and Ohio State just didn’t work in the NFL with the Jacksonville Jaguars. On the field things were rough enough as he went just 2-11 at the helm. Off the field, it was a tire fire.

Meyer created a media circus multiple times for various incidents he was at the forefront of. Whether it was dancing with a woman who wasn’t his wife, kicking a placekicker or trying out Tim Tebow as a tight end, he courted controversy every month or so.

Meyer’s experience in the NFL may have damaged his chances of ever getting another college job too. But it’s clear that many of his former assistants still think the world of him