Urban Meyer 'would not' want to be commissioner of college football

Former coach Urban Meyer does not want the responsibility of being the college football commissioner, should that rule ever come to pass. Nick Saban has been a popular name for that would-be job, and Meyer joked that he should’ve asked the Alabama legend on the golf course.

The problem for Meyer is that there are already rules in place to combat the biggest issues in the sport. It all comes down to tampering, free run of NIL and the transfer portal and the lack of enforcement.

So, it would actually be a bad idea to institute more rules, per Meyer. Just actually enforce the ones that are in place, if they actually are, to get things in order.

“I would not,” Meyer said when asked if he would be interested in the job on The Herd. “I should’ve asked Coach Saban on the third hole or fourth hole the other day if he’d be interested. I would imagine not, but who knows? I know he loves the game, and we spent a lot of that day talking about how to improve it. And the only comment I would say is that you’re going to need agreement for everybody to go and collaborate and say we’re going to actually listen. Because right now, the last thing that college football needs is more rules. 

“The rules are in place. Now they’re not enforced. So it’s like a big city where all of a sudden you have laws that no one’s enforcing. It’s chaos. College football is chaos right now, and it’s not because we need more laws or more rules; the more the rules are in place. You’re not allowed to tamper, you’re not allowed to spend over this amount of money. You’re not allowed to do this and that, but people do it, and there’s no recourse. I think Coach Elko has got a great idea, I think in the perfect world that happens and everybody lives underneath those set of rules. But to say we need more rules, every rule is in place right now to have a functioning game behind the scenes, but there’s no enforcement. Zero.”

Meyer alluded to Texas A&M’s Mike Elko’s desire to put someone in charge. But that might only happen in a perfect world.

“Put somebody in charge. It’s a $1.2 billion industry with not a singular voice in charge of it making decisions for the betterment of college football,” Elko said to On3’s JD PicKell. “And I think until we get that, we’re going to continue to flounder with some of those areas. What’s best for the SEC isn’t always what’s best for the other conferences. What’s best for the other conferences isn’t always best for the SEC.

“At some point, we’re going to have to have somebody who’s capable of making rules regarding the betterment of college football, enforcement of rules and all of it. Until we get that, I think we’re all at risk of this thing not lasting like we want it to last.”