When Urban Meyer arrived in the NFL, one of the questions was about his ability to tolerate defeat with a weak team after enjoying so much success in the college ranks.
The answer was a resounding “no”, marked by his disembarkation during the season. Asked on the show “Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakich”, Meyer returned to the conditions of his visit to Jacksonville. And it didn’t look fun.
“It was the worst professional experience of my life. What really got to me was, I don’t want to say people accept it, but hey, you lose a game, and you carry on…I was talking to myself. I also went through depression, where I stared at the ceiling wondering, “Did we do our best? “Because I really thought we had a good enough squad to win games. I think we just didn’t do a good job.
It eats your soul. I tried to practice saying, “OK, it happens in the NFL. At one point, the Jaguars lost 20 games in a row. You imagine ? Twenty games where you come off the field having lost. We lost five in a row at one point and I remember… I couldn’t function anymore. I was trying to regroup, of course, I was in charge of the team. And then we won 2 out of 3 games, and I really thought we turned things around. “
And no.
“Our defense was excellent. At one point, our defense was number one in the league. We held Josh Allen (Bills) to 6 points. Two field goals. By playing high-level football. In attack, it progressed, and then we stopped scoring points. We really suffered offensively and that’s where we fell into another losing streak. I really struggled with that. “
In addition to the psychological aspect which seemed visibly insurmountable, Meyer even admits having discovered another sporting world.
“It’s very different. Just as long as you have your quarterback. The time you have with your team. Workforce management. The way to train.
I found the number of reps you have before a game incredibly low. For example, in practice you might have one or two reps on something, and then you find yourself calling it in a game. In college you never do that. In college, you have at least a dozen opportunities to test this before asking a player to do it in a game. So there are a ton of differences. “
