Urban Meyer Likes Channeling His Tony Soprano Style of Mentoring

Orlando Sentinel reporter Jeremy Fowler experienced a walk on the wild side at some Florida Gators' spring practices recently. Fowler chatted with WR Deonte Thompson a few days ago, who had this to say about the Gators' previous and current quarterbacks:

"You never know with Tim. He can bolt. You think he's running but he'll come up and pass it to you. You just have to be ready. With Brantley, everything's with rhythm, with time. You know, a real quarterback."

Of course, other reporters had heard that quote as well, so Fowler was not the only reporter who wrote it up in an article. But Meyer wasn't too happy over that quote, and instead of putting Thompson in a straitjacket and gagging him—although players were not available to the media after practice— he turned his anger to Fowler.

For real, Urban?

Threatening a reporter over a quote that one of your players said?

Meyer—and all of his spiritual street cred—just hit the pavement with a crackling thud. He killed the messenger.

"You'll be out of practice, you understand that? If you do that again," Meyer said to Fowler.  "I told you five years ago: Don't mess with our players. Don't do it. You did it. You do it one more time and the Orlando Sentinel's not welcome here ever again. Is that clear? It's yes or no."

“Urban, come on. Don’t make any threats,” Fowler said. “That’s fine. I’ll play by rules.  But all I was doing is quoting the guy. I don’t think I was the only one.”

“You’re a bad guy, man,” Meyer said. “You’re a bad guy.”

A bad guy?

Is that really the best he could come up with?

That holds about as much weight as telling someone the jerk store called and they want you back. Pathetic. It's like Urban wanted to act tough and scare someone, but fumbled.

Badly.

And why is Meyer ripping a kid for doing his job?

Why not rip into Thompson for flapping his gums?

The fact that a player did spout off tells us that Meyer doesn't have as much control as he thought he did, now doesn't it?

Twenty-six players have been either arrested or cited for various infractions of the law in Meyer's five-year tenure as head coach at Florida, yet for some reason, that mind-blowing stat gets largely ignored by the media who instead are focused on Chip Kelly and his dastardly Ducks.

Whatever caused Meyer to lose his cool isn't pertinent anymore. Meyer has lost his classy reputation. Meyer is either afraid of losing his control-freak status or Thompson's quote hit below his Tebow-loving belt.

Oddly, no one is calling for an apology from Meyer. Not even the Orlando Sentinel. Would Lane Kiffin have gotten that same deferential treatment?

We used to bestow all sorts of attributes on Meyer like, "spiritual" and "mentoring", but now, "bully" and "illogical" come to mind. Just how in the heck does a reporter get threatened over a quote (correctly transcribed, according to reports) by one of his players?

If Meyer's daughter had flunked her driver's test because she crashed into a tree, would he threaten the instructor—better yet, the tree—because she failed? Does Urban threaten the local weatherman if he forecasts a hurricane, and it comes to fruition?

This whole saga is almost dream-like—was Meyer really wagging his finger at Fowler? Did he really say, "You're a bad guy"?

Yes, he did, and it wasn't funny, even if it did momentarily conjure up images of Babu getting deported on Seinfeld.

Urban was obviously upset that Thompson portrayed Tim Tebow as a less-than-perfect quarterback, but hey, we already knew that. Doesn't Meyer?

Is he really in a state of denial over Tebow?

Maybe he is just missing Tim. Maybe he's still miffed he didn't get in the Natty. Maybe he hates how Saban waxed his behind.

Maybe all those stories about how he tried to convince Jevan Snead that he was recruiting Tim Tebow as a linebacker and that's why Snead should commit to Florida, are true?

Maybe Meyer lost his mind? He was escorted off the practice field in a white truck—with some men in white coats with nets driving it?

The worst part of this whole thing is now Fowler will never get a shot at a date with Meyer's daughter, Nicki.

According to Fowler, "after Meyer made the comment about what he would do if Thompson was his son and told me to 'be very careful,' he located his daughter, Nicki, who was 20 yards away. Seconds later, they both turned in our direction and Meyer pointed toward me."

Dude, you're a made man.