Penn State and Notre Dame fans who packed inside Hard Rock Stadium Thursday night for the Orange Bowl will be cheering passionately for different teams, with a spot in the College Football Playoff championship game on the line.
While they’re wearing different colors and are hoping for drastically different results, they’re apparently united by at least one thing: a strong distaste for Urban Meyer.
In the hour leading up to kickoff of the playoff semifinal, Meyer, the former Ohio State and Florida coach, was recognized on the field for his recent induction into the Orange Bowl hall of fame.
The assembled crowd wasn’t in a celebratory mood, loudly booing Meyer, who chuckled and waved to the audience.
Meyer and his teams were a persistent roadblock to Penn State during his seven seasons at Ohio State, going 6-1 against the Nittany Lions from 2012-18, including Buckeye victories in 2017 and 2018 in which both teams were ranked in the top 10 at the time of the matchups.
Unlike Penn State, Meyer actually has connections to Notre Dame, having served as the Fighting Irish’s wide receivers coach from 1996-2000 under Lou Holtz and Bob Davie. Meyer, who is Catholic, repeatedly referred to Notre Dame as his dream job, including in 2008 while he was coaching a Florida team that went on to win that season’s national championship.
He had the opportunity to be the Irish coach after the 2004 season, but opted instead to accept the job at Florida, where he won two national championships.
Meyer faced off against Notre Dame just once in his head-coaching career, a 44-28 Ohio State victory in the Fiesta Bowl in 2016.
Meyer’s unpopularity among segments of college football fans goes beyond on-field results.
While outrageously successful, players on his Florida teams regularly got into legal trouble. He was placed on administrative leave at Ohio State in 2018 as the school conducted an investigation into claims that people close to Meyer knew of a domestic violence allegation against his former wide receivers coach, Zach Smith. Meyer ultimately retired after that season. Most recently, he had an ill-fated 13-game tenure with the Jacksonville Jaguars marred by a series of incidents, including alleged verbal and physical abuse of players and coaches.
