GatorZone.com Senior Writer
On Saturday afternoon, the two old pals will take their spots across the field from one another inside Ben Hill Griffin Stadium for their first head-to-head meeting.
Florida’s Urban Meyer and South Florida’s Skip Holtz will put aside their 20-year friendship with the same mission in mind.
“We are going to be as competitive as you know what on Saturday,’’ Meyer said this week.
But afterward, expect more than the cursory post-game handshake. “We’ll be friends for a long time,’’ Meyer said.
Meyer and Holtz first crossed paths in 1989 when Holtz left Colorado State to join his father Lou’s staff at Notre Dame. Meyer, an up-and-coming assistant looking to climb the coaching ladder, was hired to replace Holtz as receivers coach on Earl Bruce’s staff.
They bumped into one another occasionally over the next few years, but a meeting at the annual national coaches convention following the 1995 season helped shape Meyer’s career path. After six seasons at Colorado State, Meyer was looking to make a move, and he had Notre Dame on his mind.
However, he didn’t know Irish coach Lou Holtz, who just so happened to be looking for a receivers coach that year.
Enter Skip, who persuaded his dad to at least give Meyer some time at breakfast the day the convention ended and everyone was racing to the airport for home. Skip introduced the two, and with that, went to finish packing for the trip home.
“I was real young,’’ Meyer said. “Nervous is probably an inappropriate word. It’s not strong enough. I was kind of hoping [Skip] would stay. I remember [former Wisconsin coach] Barry Alvarez was sitting there, and Coach Holtz.
“We had just had a great year at Colorado State, and Coach Holtz asked me about some of the things we do on offense, so I grab some napkins and started drawing a lot of the plays right on the napkins there.’’
Whatever those plays were, Lou Holtz was impressed. Soon afterward, Meyer was off to South Bend and owner of a much higher profile as Notre Dame’s receivers coach the next five seasons.
Skip Holtz made sure to call and congratulate him.
“Look, I didn't get Urban the job," Holtz told reporters in Tampa this week, chuckling at the memory. "I gave him the stage to sell himself, which he obviously does quite well and has done many times since then. He was very knowledgeable in the way he presented himself, and he was excellent as far as X’s and O’s. I always said, ‘Boy, he’s really going to be special.’ ’’
The two have remained close ever since, including a brief conversation on Wednesday night, just days before perhaps the biggest game in the USF football program’s 14-year history.
"It’s huge for us,’’ Holtz said. “This has been something we’ve talked about since I came here — the opportunity to play Florida. Obviously they’re where we aspire to be. Florida has been one of the most dominating teams in the country the last four years. They’re a very proud program.’’
When Meyer left Utah to come to Florida in 2004, he talked with Holtz before making a final decision. When Holtz was trying to decide to leave East Carolina for USF last winter, he talked to Meyer about what that would mean for his family and career.
“I mean, we’re really good friends,’’ said Meyer, who added that Holtz is among his “top five’’ best friends in the coaching business. “I think the good thing is that we don’t tell each other what to do, but we’ll give our two cents’ worth, and it’s usually about family. It’s not about contracts. It’s about your families’ lifestyle and then it’s about the opportunity to win.
“We are both extremely dedicated to our families. When we do stuff, it’s not like we go on a boys’ trip. We usually take the families somewhere and hang out.’’
Meyer said the friendship grew during the time Skip was head coach at Connecticut. Meyer often stopped by on recruiting trips to talk about football and life. When Holtz took over the USF program in January, he talked openly about how much family played a role in his decision to leave East Carolina for USF.
Lou Holtz now lives in the Orlando area, and Holtz’s wife, Jennifer, is from Port Charlotte, where her parents still live. Holtz stresses to his assistants to make sure you find family time when you can, a practice he not only preaches but lives by.
“I know what Skip is, and I guess the best way to say it is that he’s real,’’ Meyer said.
Meyer stresses family in the same fashion at Florida, holding Family Night on Thursdays to give the coaches’ wives and families an opportunity to hang out with each other in a social setting and to build bonds during the grind-it-out season.
In about 24 hours, Meyer and Holtz will put everything else aside and try to win a game.
And what will Meyer say to his good friend afterward?
“I hope the family is well,’’ he said.
