Urban Meyer reveals he called recruits minutes after winning 2008 national championship

It’s been a long time now since the Florida Gators were truly relevant on the national stage, with the team’s last SEC title coming all the way back in 2008.

It turns out building a championship-level program is hard. Maintaining one is even harder.

The last guy who did it for Florida knew both things, which is one of the reasons he was such a ruthless competitor. There was never any time for taking the foot off the gas.

Not even with the confetti raining down after a national championship.

“(In) ’08 I actually, just the way my mind was working during the time, I was already thinking about ’09,” Urban Meyer said recently on The Buddy Martin Show. “The players were out there dancing, celebrating, I physically, because people were bothering me, I locked the door and I had to hit the top 20 recruits in America personally before I went back out and enjoyed the victory.”

That’s a tactic that’s become quite familiar in the years since. Nick Saban, Kirby Smart and others have used the echoes of their championship celebrations to entice the next group of can’t miss prospects.

Meyer might have been ahead of his time, but it came with a personal cost.

Ask anyone around the Florida program in 2009 and they’ll tell you that despite the Gators going undefeated in the regular season, the entire year felt like a gigantic grind. It wasn’t a particularly ‘fun’ year with expectations so high.

Urban Meyer would endure physical issues that would eventually cause him to walk away from the juggernaut he’d built.

You could already see signs of the pressure Meyer was heaping onto himself in his recollection of those moments in a locked room down in Miami Gardens, Fla., calling recruits to sell them on being the next wave of champions.

“One of my coaches came in, he got real upset with me,” Meyer recalled. “He said, ‘Will you please just relax for a minute? Enjoy this.’ I was like, ‘We’ve got to get these recruits. ’08’s gone, we’re on to ’09.'”

As noted above: ruthless.

Meyer learned better of his approach when he jumped back into college coaching at Ohio State in 2012. He’d go on to win a third national title in his third season with the Buckeyes.

This time, Urban Meyer didn’t lock himself in a room.

“When we won it at Ohio State I didn’t let that happen,” he said. “I made sure I enjoyed that win.”

Florida fans will get a chance to relive some of the glory days this summer. Netflix is airing a documentary titled “Swamp Kings” that will feature a behind-the-scenes look at the Gators from 2006-09.

Much like the teams Meyer fielded in Gainesville, it’s sure to be appointment television.