College football

Meyer tries to root out selfishness

UF's coach says a culture of me-first players has been a big challenge during his first season.

By ANTONYA ENGLISH
Published December 29, 2005

	[Times photo: Willie J. Allen Jr.]
	Urban Meyer gets a shower after a 34-7 rout of Florida State, a victory he says shows the mind-set of the Gators is changing for the better.

TAMPA - As his team prepares for Monday's Outback Bowl, Urban Meyer acknowledged Wednesday that one of the biggest challenges in his first season has been dealing with selfish players and changing a "culture at Florida" that promotes individuals over team.

"There's an element of selfishness on our football team," Meyer said during an Outback Bowl news conference Wednesday morning. "I'm glad to say it's disappearing. It disappeared for four quarters against FSU (a 34-7 win). But when the No. 1 concern is about how many guys are going to the NFL and all the other issues I keep hearing about, we're going to change that. We're going to talk about how do you go win an SEC championship? That's much more important.

"How do you go about winning a bowl game? I don't hear those discussions. I hear a lot of these other discussions through the media and through our players. ... Go look at the great programs in the country. You don't hear that. So we have got to change that mentality."

Meyer said the team's attitude began to change near the end of the season, but this program is nowhere near where he envisions it can be. A factor in the Gators' woes this season was the mind-set he discovered when he arrived in Gainesville: For many players, there was much more "I" than there was "team."

"For some reason that's a little bit of a culture at Florida," he said. "It's there. I hear it, and I've had it. I kind of enjoy preparing and getting a team ready to play a game, not worrying about what's going to happen five months from now, two years from now, three years from now, and maybe might never happen. The highly recruited guys get things built in their heads via family members, via third uncles that really have no say-so in what's going on. And we've dealt with that all year. I remember dealing with that when I was an assistant coach at Notre Dame.

"But like I said, the best thing going on right now is that you see it disappearing. Or if it's not disappearing, it's censored, it's put away for a while, which is very important as you get ready to go for a bowl game."

Meyer's hiring last December was met with wide enthusiasm from fans and players. He promised a change in attitude, on and off the field. Florida opened the season 4-0, including a win over then-No. 4 Tennessee. But a 31-3 loss to Alabama sent the team reeling and got many players back into the pre-Meyer mind-set they had developed during the past few years of subpar seasons, senior safety Jarvis Herring said.

Herring acknowledged that many Florida players became so focused on potential careers in the NFL they didn't concentrate on winning games in college. Herring said the problem was worse under former coach Ron Zook.

"I just feel we've been through so much the past few years that was the mind-set of all the past seniors," Herring said. "And the younger guys picked it up from some of those guys and they just wanted to say, "I'm in it for myself and I'm trying to get out of here because we're not going to win anything here anyway,' " Herring said. "That was kind of the mind-set. You came here to win championships and get rings and things like that and then guys got frustrated with losing, what, five games a season. And it kind of got to that mind-set: "Hey, I'm not going to win any rings or anything so I'm just going to look out for myself.' "

That attitude, he conceded, "might have cost us the SEC title."

Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz, whose Hawkeyes will play against the Gators on Monday, said he understands the issue Meyer faced when he arrived. It's not just a Gator problem, it's societal, he said.

"Believe it or not, I think, if you're not careful, it can permeate anywhere at any time," Ferentz said. "I really believe that. Looking back over the years, things have changed a great deal. We've never had the amount of exposure to sports that we now have currently. ... We really glorify athletic accomplishment at an early age. It's a big part of identity for student athletes or athletes in general and I think it's a dangerous thing."

Meyer said the Gators' win over Florida State proved to him that the mind-set of the players is changing and he has seen more evidence in the way they are preparing this week.

"I'm happy to say that (selfish mentality) is changing very rapidly," he said. "All you've got to do is come watch practice. It's changing very rapidly."

[Last modified December 29, 2005, 00:52:13]