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Best Fridays in Football: July 30 · The Jacksonville Jaguars Official Podcast Network

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Best Fridays in Football, presented by by
0:06
Speaker 1: Star Credit Union with New York Times best selling author
0:10
Speaker 1: Buddy Martin and Jacksonville Jaguar's head coach Urban Meyer. The
0:15
Speaker 1: Best Fridays in Football starts right now. Okay, I guess
0:20
Speaker 1: it's Sam's welcome back, my podcast partner. We did this
0:25
Speaker 1: a year ago and I'm so happy he's doing me again.
0:28
Speaker 1: Thank you very much to Urban and the Jacksonville jaguarris
0:32
Speaker 1: chance to do this program called the Best Fridays in Football,
0:36
Speaker 1: and since it's not Friday and it's not football, just
0:39
Speaker 1: have to be the summertime preview edition with coach Urban Meyer.
0:44
Speaker 1: Coach is great to be with you again, one of
0:46
Speaker 1: my favorite people. Buddy, good to see you. Thank you.
0:49
Speaker 1: You know, we did this last year and one of
0:51
Speaker 1: the things we promised ourselves we're gonna celebrate football. We
0:55
Speaker 1: were also going to be transparent about things involving people
1:00
Speaker 1: old and the traditions of the game. And I found
1:03
Speaker 1: it very enlightening and enjoyed it. And thanks but let
1:06
Speaker 1: me do this again, and there is no script, we
1:08
Speaker 1: just do it here. And uh so let's start out
1:11
Speaker 1: with this one. I talked to you three weeks before
1:15
Speaker 1: you took the job as the coach of the Jacquelin
1:18
Speaker 1: Jaguars NFL career. Really surprised, please happy for you. And
1:22
Speaker 1: I asked the question, and I'll ask it again Why
1:26
Speaker 1: I've been asked that question a lot. Um. I think
1:30
Speaker 1: you know me, uh that it would have to be
1:33
Speaker 1: a really good situation. I had a great I have
1:35
Speaker 1: a great life. Um, you know, it's healthy and working
1:38
Speaker 1: at an incredible place with Fox. But you know, I
1:42
Speaker 1: actually we can have this conversation. But you know I
1:46
Speaker 1: was on this phone call this zoom called it several
1:48
Speaker 1: CEO s us and I shared this with Amy Policic
1:51
Speaker 1: a minute ago. And and it's really, I mean kind of.
1:54
Speaker 1: It's one of those ones. You know, things cross your
1:56
Speaker 1: you know, come across and it was like someone hit
1:59
Speaker 1: you right in the face and was Opportunities are only
2:02
Speaker 1: opportunities if you take advantage of them. And every day,
2:06
Speaker 1: opportunities walk right in front of us, whether it be family,
2:09
Speaker 1: whether it be spiritual, or whether it be in your
2:12
Speaker 1: corporate life and in your job, I shouldn't say corporate,
2:15
Speaker 1: in your in your job, in your professional life. And
2:19
Speaker 1: so many times you me have seen an opportunity. We
2:22
Speaker 1: didn't take advantage of it. And that came across and
2:26
Speaker 1: I was talking to these CEOs and and so I
2:28
Speaker 1: kind of started it. And you should have heard some
2:30
Speaker 1: of the conversation we had. And it's not that the smartest,
2:34
Speaker 1: the not necessarily the hardest working all those some people
2:37
Speaker 1: get great things happen, But it's if you have to
2:41
Speaker 1: really look and say why. There's a lot of variables.
2:44
Speaker 1: But they saw an opportunity they took it. Now, it's
2:46
Speaker 1: an educated opportunity. Can't just jump into the abyss and
2:49
Speaker 1: not know what you're getting into. But I looked at
2:53
Speaker 1: this buddy as an opportunity. I did research on an owner,
2:57
Speaker 1: and the owner is the primary reason why I took
3:00
Speaker 1: this job. Once I spent time with him, once I
3:03
Speaker 1: did my homework on them, once we had those hard conversations.
3:06
Speaker 1: Another reason is is nine oh four is Jacksonville. I
3:10
Speaker 1: love Jacksonville. I love I've always enjoyed coming down here,
3:13
Speaker 1: and most importantly, I've not been disappointed as I recruited
3:16
Speaker 1: down here for many many years. We visited for many
3:19
Speaker 1: many years. It's the people and they want to win
3:22
Speaker 1: so darn bad. And then the third reason is I
3:25
Speaker 1: think we can. I'm not going to do something I
3:27
Speaker 1: don't think we can have some success. We have the
3:30
Speaker 1: number one pick, Trevor Lawrence. We have a good draft capital,
3:34
Speaker 1: which I believe we did a good job. We had
3:35
Speaker 1: free agent capital, which we did a good job. And
3:38
Speaker 1: most important, we had a good core group of players.
3:41
Speaker 1: So that's the why. I know it's a little long answer,
3:43
Speaker 1: but that's the why. You know, as you said, some
3:46
Speaker 1: people say you had it all. I mean, you had
3:48
Speaker 1: a beautiful family. You still do. You had a beautiful
3:51
Speaker 1: home in Ohio, beautiful home in Florida, great TV gig,
3:56
Speaker 1: multiple grandchildren, everything you sort of bull the sort out
4:01
Speaker 1: of the stone. And yet there was something you wanted
4:03
Speaker 1: to do that was and and I had to get
4:08
Speaker 1: family approval. I had to really, you know, make sure
4:11
Speaker 1: this was not a knee jerk reaction. This is something
4:15
Speaker 1: I actually started, not not not necessarily Jacksonville, but I
4:17
Speaker 1: just wanted to educate myself in the NFL. I know,
4:20
Speaker 1: I knew a lot from our former players, but I
4:23
Speaker 1: studied coaches, I studied general managers, I studied roster management,
4:26
Speaker 1: and most importantly I started you know, players and and
4:30
Speaker 1: and how to win. And so I've been working on this.
4:33
Speaker 1: You know, this is this was a twelve month project
4:36
Speaker 1: from January to January. And I know you have a
4:40
Speaker 1: number of mentors. You are a mentor to a lot
4:43
Speaker 1: of people. Now you've had a fabulous coaching tree as
4:46
Speaker 1: we can see all around the country with with your
4:48
Speaker 1: former assistance. Uh, and tell me a little bit about
4:53
Speaker 1: these guys real click Lou Holtz, Earl Bruce, what he hazes,
4:57
Speaker 1: Sonny Lubick, and anybody else, and what pieces of them
5:01
Speaker 1: you take you in his new venture in the NFL.
5:05
Speaker 1: I'm humbled by those names you just mentioned because I
5:08
Speaker 1: talked to coach. You know, sometimes coaches don't get in
5:10
Speaker 1: those kind of coaching trees. There's a common theme with
5:13
Speaker 1: all those people you just mentioned, and it's UH cared
5:16
Speaker 1: deeply for the student athlete or the you know in
5:19
Speaker 1: college of student athlete and the um and professional football
5:22
Speaker 1: as they cared deeply for the player. I mean, that's
5:24
Speaker 1: my my life, is my family, my faith, and I
5:26
Speaker 1: cared deeply for for players. Has been that way for
5:29
Speaker 1: thirty some years. And I you know that I can't
5:31
Speaker 1: get enough of that, even when the narrative or even
5:34
Speaker 1: when the media and something goes after I love the underdog.
5:37
Speaker 1: You know, someone comes from a tough environment, someone's going
5:40
Speaker 1: through a hard time. I believe that's when the coaches
5:43
Speaker 1: needed the mouth, not when it's going well, you know,
5:45
Speaker 1: when it's when when someone's really going through a hard time. So, uh,
5:50
Speaker 1: great mentors. Lou Holtz was one of my early mentors,
5:53
Speaker 1: and he was tough. He demanded excellence out of people.
5:57
Speaker 1: You know. Earl Bruce was you know, one of my
5:59
Speaker 1: first tours and arguably my primary mentor, and he taught
6:02
Speaker 1: me right from wrong. You know, it's a lot a
6:04
Speaker 1: lot like my father, and there's a right way and
6:06
Speaker 1: the wrong way, and the right way is what you think.
6:11
Speaker 1: You know, obviously there's some objective truths here, but if
6:13
Speaker 1: it's about the chance to help someone, do it the
6:16
Speaker 1: right do the right thing, don't don't do what the
6:18
Speaker 1: media tells you to do, don't do what the fans
6:20
Speaker 1: tell you do you you do the right thing. And
6:22
Speaker 1: and I my father was the same way. And then
6:25
Speaker 1: you had Sonny Lubeck was incredible. Um to this day,
6:28
Speaker 1: I'm still very close with him. He had the same
6:30
Speaker 1: qualities a little different way of going about it. So
6:32
Speaker 1: I have had great mentors and I'm so grateful that
6:36
Speaker 1: I had those guys. Well, you mentioned somebody I want
6:40
Speaker 1: to talk about one of our podcasts future, and that's
6:43
Speaker 1: your dad, but who had a remarkable life and had
6:46
Speaker 1: a big influence on you. But we'll save that for
6:49
Speaker 1: a specialist show because he's worth it. Urban. I like
6:54
Speaker 1: to during this podcast we're doing continue with our asked
6:59
Speaker 1: Urban feature will get questions. That was always fun to do,
7:02
Speaker 1: if you'd like to do that, um, And I'd also
7:05
Speaker 1: like to do something tell us something about Rwan Mere
7:08
Speaker 1: that we might not know. For instance, a lot of
7:12
Speaker 1: people know a lot of people don't know you were
7:14
Speaker 1: a professional baseball player. Yeah, such a great baseball player.
7:21
Speaker 1: I went on in a coaching football career. I did.
7:24
Speaker 1: I got drafted out of high school. I was a
7:25
Speaker 1: really good high school player. And uh it was back
7:28
Speaker 1: in the cal Ripken era, remember the cow I mean
7:31
Speaker 1: all the big short stop it just and I was
7:34
Speaker 1: big for a shortstop. And I started hitting home runs
7:36
Speaker 1: in high school and they got a lot of attention,
7:39
Speaker 1: and I got a good arm, and and so people
7:42
Speaker 1: you know in northeast Ohio, you get reined out and
7:44
Speaker 1: snowed out so often you only played like fifty games,
7:48
Speaker 1: and I remember scouts started showing up and and that
7:50
Speaker 1: really didn't happen in that small town. And so an
7:52
Speaker 1: opportunity got drafted by the Braves back in the America's
7:56
Speaker 1: Team era with Bob Hornet, Dale Murphy, those guys. And
8:00
Speaker 1: it was hard. It was fastball, went to you know,
8:05
Speaker 1: and they take away from your Eastern big Eastern aluminum
8:07
Speaker 1: bat and they give you a wooden one. Worked really
8:10
Speaker 1: hard at it, really really hard at it. Suffered an
8:13
Speaker 1: elbow injury the second year, and uh was struggling my
8:16
Speaker 1: first year, struggled mightily. Secondary started hitting the ball a
8:19
Speaker 1: little bit, hit a home run and started getting a
8:22
Speaker 1: little better. And then the one thing back then but
8:24
Speaker 1: if you got hurt or if you know, they cut
8:26
Speaker 1: you immediately. And uh so I was. I only lasted
8:29
Speaker 1: two years and had a chance to go back. I
8:32
Speaker 1: had a couple of tryouts and uh, just right at
8:35
Speaker 1: the last moment, wasn't able to make the team. So, yeah,
8:38
Speaker 1: I was a baseball player for two years, and professionals
8:42
Speaker 1: paid the dood coach. That's pretty good. Yeah me, I'd
8:45
Speaker 1: love to gun pay to play baseball. But you're right,
8:48
Speaker 1: not curb balls. The curveball is a little hard to
8:52
Speaker 1: hit two on these days. I'm sure, uh, urben a
8:55
Speaker 1: couple of more if we could here. I want to
8:57
Speaker 1: get into your owner, shot Con. We you're in Gainsville.
9:01
Speaker 1: I wrote a book called Urban's Way, and I actually
9:04
Speaker 1: wanted to see the name of street apt called Urban's Way.
9:09
Speaker 1: Shot Con'sville in the whole city for you here for
9:11
Speaker 1: gine House out. That was amazing plan that I saw.
9:15
Speaker 1: That put out the pins for what's happening in Jacksonville.
9:18
Speaker 1: And he shows the commitment that he has the city
9:21
Speaker 1: of Jacksonville, and you're all part of that. He's building
9:24
Speaker 1: that around you and your success. That is amazing. He
9:28
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make him write a book. I mean, he's
9:30
Speaker 1: one of the most interesting people and selfish people I
9:33
Speaker 1: have ever been around. Uh he there's zero misunderstanding when
9:39
Speaker 1: you're around Shot. He wants to win so bad, but
9:42
Speaker 1: he doesn't. He's got it. He's got more than you know.
9:45
Speaker 1: It's not about him. It's really about Jacksonville. It really is.
9:48
Speaker 1: I think about how pure, in the purest form, what
9:50
Speaker 1: that is. And you start hearing about move the team
9:52
Speaker 1: here and do this, do that. He's investing in Jacksonville.
9:56
Speaker 1: And when you start talking about the four Seasons and
9:58
Speaker 1: some of the things he wants to do on the
9:59
Speaker 1: water away here, Jacksonville is a gorgeous city with so
10:02
Speaker 1: much open space on the water, and he wants to
10:05
Speaker 1: do so many things to make the city even greater.
10:07
Speaker 1: And Uh, he's an interesting guy. Uh, he's a guy
10:11
Speaker 1: that has been successful basically everything he's done. He's one
10:14
Speaker 1: of the most brilliant people. When you sit and talk
10:16
Speaker 1: to him, he's brilliant. And I'm not he's brilliant, He's
10:20
Speaker 1: I don't really know his business acumen. You can just
10:22
Speaker 1: look at numbers I imagine and it's ridiculous. But his
10:25
Speaker 1: management of people, his people skills are arguably the best
10:29
Speaker 1: I've ever been around. Well, you've got people all the
10:34
Speaker 1: charts excited what you're doing. I mean, you had a
10:37
Speaker 1: remarkable attendance at your camps and what have you. It's
10:40
Speaker 1: way too early to start evaluating talent, obviously, we'll talk
10:43
Speaker 1: about that later. There will be Tim Tebow questions, of course,
10:47
Speaker 1: down the road someplace, of course. And I talked to
10:50
Speaker 1: a guy, you know who works for the ap uh,
10:54
Speaker 1: and he's kind of a one of these guys. It's
10:56
Speaker 1: a little bit I would say cynical, but he's kind
10:58
Speaker 1: of guy you gotta show me, you know. And so
11:01
Speaker 1: he texted the other day he actually tweeted, well, the
11:04
Speaker 1: first camp is over. Uh, Lawrence was amazing and it
11:08
Speaker 1: means twenty and no for the jack Jaguars. So that
11:12
Speaker 1: was an optimistic note a little too however, But as
11:15
Speaker 1: you sit here in so I were thinking about this
11:18
Speaker 1: what's ahead even though you haven't done long term evaluations,
11:21
Speaker 1: you don't know yet. I know you have some goals
11:25
Speaker 1: and I don't ask you reveal them all, but this,
11:27
Speaker 1: generally speaking, what do you want to do here? You know,
11:30
Speaker 1: I've been asked this question many times and it's changed
11:33
Speaker 1: over the years, and we've had talk about hoping opportunity, buddy,
11:37
Speaker 1: and hoping opportunity once hoping opportunities taken from you. It's
11:41
Speaker 1: it's hard to it's hard to get out of bed
11:43
Speaker 1: in the morning. So I've started a many years ago,
11:46
Speaker 1: since they started many years ago. I took the the
11:50
Speaker 1: old classic goal boards or objective boards that every coach
11:53
Speaker 1: had on the walls about when the national title, when
11:55
Speaker 1: the big ten, When this, when that, and I don't.
11:58
Speaker 1: We don't do that anymore though, are too extrinsic. You know,
12:01
Speaker 1: if you remember the conversations we've had before, where extrinsic
12:05
Speaker 1: goals or abstract goals have too many outside influencers, you can't.
12:10
Speaker 1: It's hard to accomplish that. And if you as a
12:12
Speaker 1: you know just the way the mind works. If you work.
12:14
Speaker 1: If you're working so hard from something and that's your
12:17
Speaker 1: goal and it's out of your control, it's taken from you,
12:20
Speaker 1: that's hard to recover from. Example, we want to win
12:23
Speaker 1: the national championship, we get a couple of devastating injuries,
12:28
Speaker 1: we maybe lose a game, and then a committee decides
12:30
Speaker 1: we're not viable, even though I think most people thought
12:33
Speaker 1: we were. That that takes your breath away. It's hard
12:36
Speaker 1: to recover. Where if your goal is intrinsic and ours
12:42
Speaker 1: is here, mine is and I've already talked to our
12:44
Speaker 1: team briefly, we're not we didn't hit this hard yet.
12:46
Speaker 1: We will. But our goal here is to maximize who
12:49
Speaker 1: we are. I want to get the very best out
12:51
Speaker 1: of every person who walks in this organization. That's every
12:54
Speaker 1: coach and every player if I can get the best
12:56
Speaker 1: out of every player and you give me your best,
12:59
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna win a buy two games. If
13:01
Speaker 1: we can't accomplish that, I don't. Don't talk to me
13:03
Speaker 1: about playoffs, wild card, uh attendants, don't. None of that matters.
13:07
Speaker 1: Give us your very best. And here's a cool thing
13:10
Speaker 1: about that, buddy, we have complete control over that. No
13:13
Speaker 1: one has control over giving us your very best. That's
13:16
Speaker 1: an intrinsic, attainable goal. Most to me, other goals are
13:20
Speaker 1: abstract and extrinsic, and I'm not a fan of that.
13:24
Speaker 1: You know, you have you give someone a goal that
13:25
Speaker 1: they can't do or that they have no control over.
13:29
Speaker 1: You know that that's that that's playing mind games with people.
13:32
Speaker 1: Give us your very best, and you're betting on yourself
13:35
Speaker 1: bound thing urban Uh the year a hand. We'll see
13:39
Speaker 1: how this all works out. But at that moment when
13:42
Speaker 1: you said yes, you said I'm in. Who's the first
13:46
Speaker 1: person you call or texted beside your family? And what
13:51
Speaker 1: did you say about the new job as that coach
13:54
Speaker 1: of the Jacksonville Jaguars. You know, it might have been
13:56
Speaker 1: Charlie Strong, it might have been uh. You know, that's
13:59
Speaker 1: how much act I have for Coach Strong. We've been
14:01
Speaker 1: together a long time. I admire him, I need him,
14:04
Speaker 1: I uh um. Obviously we shared incredible success together at Florida.
14:11
Speaker 1: I tell people this all the time that there's no
14:13
Speaker 1: chance who would have had that success without him. He's
14:16
Speaker 1: one of the first guys. You know. I'd put Ryan
14:18
Speaker 1: Stamper in that category because a minute you say yes,
14:21
Speaker 1: after you talk to your family and you know some
14:23
Speaker 1: people you're very close with, I got good news and
14:26
Speaker 1: bad news. You said good news is I said yes,
14:28
Speaker 1: bad news said yes, you better get going, pal And
14:30
Speaker 1: the first thing you got to do is start putting
14:32
Speaker 1: together people and build a foxhole uh foxhole mentality of
14:36
Speaker 1: people that you trust. And so that was I'd have
14:39
Speaker 1: to say those two were very early in the conversation
14:42
Speaker 1: about you know where we're done with the congratulations let's
14:46
Speaker 1: go well. He certainly have brought those two things to
14:50
Speaker 1: Jacksonville and to Juguard Nation, hoping the opportunity. People are
14:54
Speaker 1: very very excited. I want to thank you for doing
14:57
Speaker 1: this podcast every week, Thank everybody there with Jack Wards
15:01
Speaker 1: and Palishi and the team, and looking forward very much
15:05
Speaker 1: to following Urban Meyer as the head coach of jacks
15:08
Speaker 1: Words Jack Wards, Thanks Servant, Thanks to tell Terry Bradshaw,
15:12
Speaker 1: Hello too. He's already told me you're gonna be successful,
15:15
Speaker 1: no doubt about h