Man, this is NOT necessarily "what I wanted". Of COURSE he was a great coach. In fact, lately I have hoped Urban would "snap out of it" and do what I felt deep down HE knew it was his responsibility to do--that has been the point of my open pleas of late. Don't you think he has made a clear choice here, his family and private life over the pressures, responsibilities and hard choices facing the Head Coach of the Florida Gators? As such, this decision is the right and fair one--to himself and his family, on the one hand, and to his players, the students, alumni, fans and institution that comprise Gator Nation, on the other.
I have the same concerns as everyone else going forward from here. Just as we'll never have another Tim Tebow, we won't be seeing another Urban Meyer soon coming down the road either. However, just as there will be other Gator quarterbacks, great ones who will thrill and inspire and lead their teams to future glory, there's no reason that we won't soon see a renewed, re-energized Gator program reestablishing dominance in the SEC thanks to the vision and effort of the right newly-hired coach, and the new blood he brings with him.
So I'm with you: Let's pray for that "right new hire"--we can have practically whomever we want; the only time constraint has to do with recruiting, and nothing is written in stone there until February, so we can take a few weeks NOW if we need it to consider, discuss, weigh the pros and cons, put out "backchannel feelers" and so on without rushing into anything so that, yes, this time we AVOID ANYTHING LIKE a Zook-type meltdown.
