Urban Meyer Says He Wouldn't Advise NFL Prospects to Play in Spring CFB Season

Former Ohio State and Florida head coach Urban Meyer said Thursday he'd likely tell top NFL prospects to skip the 2020 college football season if it's eventually moved to the spring of 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Meyer told Yahoo Sports' Eric Edholm there wouldn't be enough time between the college campaign and the start of a player's NFL career.

"If you have a chance after you fulfilled your commitment to a university to go and earn a living playing football, I don't know if I'd advise a guy to play a spring season before going to the NFL draft," Meyer said.

He added: "It'd be hard for me not to advise them and tell them to play. To play in spring and then go play in OTAs in the National Football League, that's not fair."

Sources believe the number of players who declare for the draft if the 2020 season is moved from the fall will exceed 100, per Edholm.

"There'll be a significant amount of guys," an unnamed coach from a top-20 program told Yahoo Sports. "I think for a lot of those guys, they're going to go into it and see the mock drafts already. If they are in the top 3-4 rounds, they're probably just going to say, 'I don't want to get hurt.'"

The 2021 NFL draft is scheduled to take place in Cleveland beginning April 29. It's unclear whether the league would be willing to shift the dates if the college football season remains ongoing at that point.

Meanwhile, college athletic departments around the country have already faced a financial burden because of the pandemic, and losing revenue from the college football season could be catastrophic.

"There isn't a model I can run to fix the problem of not having any football," UCF athletic director Danny White told ESPN in April. "I don't think there's anybody in my position with a big football fanbase that could make decisions to fix that. I don't know what happens—there's not a model, there's not a solution, there's not an action I can take that's going to solve that problem."

It creates a situation where schools feel pressure to play the upcoming season in some fashion, whether it be a shortened campaign in the fall or a makeshift one in the spring, and it could force fringe draft prospects into some difficult decisions.

Meyer explained to Edholm his staff created a pitch-count system at Ohio State to limit a player's number of competitive snaps within a calendar year, and those who approached 2,000 were held out of the following season's spring practice for recovery.

"I physically think it's impossible to have 2,000 reps in a calendar year," Meyer said. "I don't think your body can do it."

Certain players could smash through that mark if college football is moved to spring. For example, a prospect who's a key player at a mid-tier program who's trying to prove himself worthy of being drafted could play every snap, get drafted and then be right back on the field trying to earn a roster spot.

Finding a solution that's perfect for all parties involved will likely prove impossible because of the pandemic, though.