Already, Urban Meyer has become all but the center of the college football universe, his every word parsed, every thought dissected, and every move inspected by legions of fans who have come to regard him with the same exhilarated sense of awe as teen-agers swooning over a pop star.
Imagine what happens if he wins tonight.
Just four years after leaving the Utah Utes in the afterglow of their greatest season ever -- to that point, of course -- the 44-year-old Meyer can cement his coaching legend far ahead of its time when his Florida Gators meet Oklahoma tonight in the Bowl Championship Series title game in Miami. A victory will give him his second BCS title in three years -- and perhaps a salary bump to $5 million a year -- even if his old team would prefer it beat him out for the Associated Press national championship.
"I don't really have a preference," Utah's Zane Beadles said, "but I think Florida is going to win. I'll be cheering for them because maybe that will help us."
It definitely wouldn't hurt Meyer.
He already knows what a national title can do for a program, having enjoyed silencing with his first one the critics who wondered whether his spread offense could work nearly as well in the SEC as it did with the Utes in the Mountain West Conference.
Armed now with personnel that fits the system even better than it did three years ago, the Gators rank third in the nation in scoring -- the Sooners rank first -- and have basically revolutionized both college and pro football with their offensive style.
"I don't want to say winning a national title legitimized everything we do, but in this world of doubt, it kind of had that effect," Meyer told ESPN's Mark Schlabach recently. "I was raised that if you don't have something nice to say, then don't say it. But it seems like the public, whether it's the media or just people talking, they always have ways of finding faults in programs.
"When something happens like winning a national championship," he added, "and you see how many lives were turned around and see a group of kids who bought into something and went as hard as they can, I don't want to say it legitimizes it, but it does."
