TAMPA, Fla. — They jumped and shouted and cheered in their white Nike jerseys, carrying their beloved national-title-winning coach off the field after his final game roaming the sideline.
“Put me down,” the coach urged.
Because after the end of an era, after one of the more successful head-coaching reigns at a national power was capped off with an inspired New Year’s Day bowl win, there was a feeling so damned good that it just had to be shared with the man who opposed him.
“Someday, you’re going to retire,” the Gatorade-drenched coach began, “and your players are going to play as hard as my guys did.”
That coach was Lloyd Carr of Michigan. And the man he was speaking to was Urban Meyer of Florida.
The date was Jan. 1, 2008.
It was three years ago to the day of Saturday’s 25th Outback Bowl, a little more than 75 miles up the road from here. That is where Meyer — the man to whom Carr’s words were directed — saw first-hand just how special Saturday could be if everything he believes about his players holds true.
“I have thought about that because I remember when he said that to me, and I have great respect for Coach Carr,” Meyer said Friday, remembering when Carr’s Michigan team upset his Gators in Carr’s finale, the 2008 Capital One Bowl in Orlando.
“I’m a big fan of those old coaches, so I do remember that very well and I did think about that.”
“I think the older players will play like there’s no tomorrow,” he added, “and I’m hoping the younger players will carry the torch and follow.”
That was about as sentimental as Meyer would get the day before his final game, save for a reminder that, for what he perceived to be the thousandth time, he loved the man he would be facing, Joe Paterno.
THE STORY ABOUT PATERNO
While the 46-year-old Meyer was mostly business before facing Penn State, the 84-year-old Paterno — he falls under the “old coaches” category, doesn’t he? — began his pregame press conference with a playful reminder that, once and for all, he is here to stay, at least for another year.
“I have no comment,” Paterno said when introduced. “I have no plans to retire, all right? Can we get that one out of the way and then get on with something positive?”
For Paterno, that usually means a few stories from a brain that reaches all the way back to the Johnson administration, when he began his head-coaching career.
Asked about motivating players, Paterno relayed a tale about the difference between running backs Lydell Mitchell and Franco Harris.
“I said if I tell Lydell Mitchell to run through that wall, he’d run through that wall,” Paterno said. “I said if I tell Franco Harris to run through that wall, he’d go over and he’d feel where’s the soft spot.”
A RUN OF PRAISE FOR ROYSTER
The positive extended to this year’s running back, as well — the one who has rushed for more yards in his career than Mitchell and Harris and Curt Warner and every other Penn State back who came before him.
Evan Royster is closing out his Nittany Lion career against Florida, and anyone who has been following the team all year long knows how rarely Paterno has heaped praise on the fifth-year senior.
Until Friday.
“Royster’s been solid; he’s been durable,” Paterno said. “He’s not a very vocal kid; he’s not one of those rah-rah guys. We were talking about motivation a little bit earlier and whether you motivate the same way. Royster’s the kind of guy, ‘Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll give it my best shot.’
“He’s been a good, solid football player for us. You wish he had just another step of speed and then he’d be on the verge of being a really great one. He’s a great athlete. He was the best lacrosse player in the state of Virginia when he came out, heck of a student. It was kind of fun to see him at graduation. His mom came up with his three brothers, four boys. A couple of them went to Stanford, and the kid we had. They’re all good-looking kids and bright kids. We’re gonna miss him.”
And then there was this gem, about how his father and uncle took him to Bay Ridge in Brooklyn to watch Archie Moore box.
“My dad said, ‘There’s the best fighter in America, pound-for-pound,’ ” Paterno said. “And coming out that kind of got me, because he wasn’t the champ or anything, and I said, ‘How come nobody knows about him?’
“He said, ‘You know about the mafia, don’t you?’ He couldn’t get Archie to sign up with the syndicate, but he was great.”
With that, a tale more likely from the days of the FDR administration, Paterno thanked everyone for stopping by, said he hopes for a good game Saturday and walked out of the room in hip silver, not customary black, Nike sneakers.
Wearing a black suit, Meyer followed in a few minutes later, taking pregame questions one final time, once again taking a backseat to one of those old coaches.
In less than 48 hours — after his players run and hit and tackle as hard as Michigan’s did three years ago — after they give their coach that same damned good feeling Carr had, business time would be over.
Then, much like the man he will be facing Saturday, he could get on with something positive.
