Urban Meyer may have regretted leaving Florida, but it would've been tough for him to stay

Maybe it's a little revisionist history, maybe there is some legitimate regret. It's always hard to tell with Urban Meyer.

But the former Florida Gators coach and three-time national champion says he should've never left Gainesville and told Hightop Sports that it was one of the few regrets he had in his coaching career.

"There are a few regrets I have in my coaching career...leaving Florida...you know, I never should have left," Meyer said. "I was going through some significant health stuff....It's well-documented, and I stepped away, but a month after I did, I'm like, 'What the hell did I do?'"

Meyer coached the Gators from 2005-10 and compiled a 65-15 record with two BCS championships. He left coaching for a year before going to Ohio State, where he went 83-9 with a CFP championship in 2014.

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Urban Meyer regrets leaving Florida, but it had to happen

Let me get this out of the way right now: Meyer is the second-best college football coach in the 21st century. The only reason he's not the best is because Nick Saban exists, and I'm sure if you asked Saban which coach gave him the most trouble in his career, Meyer is probably the answer.

His tenure was extremely successful, there's no question. Some fans will say Meyer was the best coach in program history and others will say it was Steve Spurrier, but they are the clear top two. Meyer's tenure was also very contentious and for good reason. There was a LOT going on in Gainesville and not all of it was good.

There's no need to get into all the off-field transgressions that happened during Meyer's tenure. There have been plenty written on it, some documentaries that sort of glossed over it and a former disgraced assistant, Zack Smith, put together an amazing 30-minute webcast to spill all the tea (sadly that video has long left the interwebs).

Meyer coached on the edge, and he wanted players that toted the line. Some crossed the line, and it's probably fair to say that Meyer's stance on off-field discipline was checkered. I often compare the Meyer era to Frankenstein's monster. They wrecked every place in the SEC and when that was done, they wrecked their own village and, like the novel, the villagers kind of turned on them.

Some forget that Meyer actually resigned after the 2009 season, but changed it to a leave of absence. He returned in 2010 and Florida went 8-5, but without Tim Tebow, Percy Harvin, Janorris Jenkins, Joe Haden, Brandon Spikes, Carlos Dunlap and a host of others, the Gators weren't the same and neither was Meyer.

The stress of winning and the stress of the outside noise and criticism had Meyer in a dark place. Do I think Meyer had the ability to rebuild the Gators into a powerhouse? Absolutely. But he didn't have the energy to deal with it all. His character had taken a major hit and the program's reputation had taken a hit. Meyer left for good after the 2010 season, and, if we're being honest, he had to go. 

Over the past few years, Meyer has worked to repair his relationship with the school. Like most relationships, it's complicated. While Meyer had some legitimate health concerns, there will always be a portion of the fan base that believes he ran away when things got tough and left someone else to clean up his mess.

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He'll never be as beloved as Spurrier, but there's a high-level of respect for what Meyer accomplished in Gainesville. How Meyer would have fared in an extended tenure at Florida is left to the imagination. I assume the Gators would've been fine, but there was also a very good chance that it wasn't going to end well. Meyer leaving when he did wasn't ideal, but it had to happen. 

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