ESPN College Football

DESTIN, Fla. -- Now that the SEC spring meetings are concluding, let’s whip through a 20-point inspection from the meeting rooms, lobbies (and beaches) at the Sandestin Hilton:

1. There’s no doubt that some type of expansion is coming in college athletics, and there’s no doubt that SEC Commissioner Mike Slive has a plan in place.

2. No, he’s not divulging that plan and doesn’t feel like there’s any rush to do anything at this point. But he won’t be slow to pull the trigger if he thinks the league can strengthen itself. The SEC feels like it’s very much in the driver’s seat no matter what happens.

3. Two of the possibilities that popped up the most during casual conversation with coaches, athletic directors and other league officials were Texas and Virginia Tech. Both are tailor-made for the SEC in football, and it would be two brand new markets you’d be adding to the league.

4. Noting how crazy it’s been in the Big 12 for the last several weeks, Slive said there was a “sense of calm and sense of togetherness” within the SEC.

5. There was far too much talk in the league last season about the officiating to suit Slive. As far as he’s concerned, nobody (at least nobody he can control) will be talking about it in 2010. “We’re through with public comments about officiating. The conference is through with public comments. The coaches are through with public comments about officiating, and in terms of accountability, we’ve walked the walk and talked the talk.”

6. Florida coach Urban Meyer looks like a completely different guy than the one I remember from last December at the SEC championship game. I still don’t know if he’ll coach a lot longer than five more years, but he’s ready to go this season in what will be a bit of a change for the Gators. Suddenly, they’re not the team everybody is talking about in the national championship race. But they’re still the Gators. “There’s not many stadiums we walk into where it’s not the game of the year,” Meyer said. “That’s the way it is. The one thing about this league is they’re a bunch of hunters in this league.”

7. Losing to Alabama in last season’s SEC championship game wasn’t the hardest part for Meyer. It was the way his team performed in that game (or didn’t perform) that was so difficult to accept. “We missed over 20 tackles and had a couple of turnovers, so we didn’t play the way we took great pride in," Meyer said. "That’s what happens when you play that way against great people. You get exposed.” The Gators were 45-2 under Meyer in games where they had single-digit missed tackles going into that Alabama contest.

8. Even though he no longer has Tim Tebow, Meyer is adamant about keeping the “Tim Tebow package" as a part of Florida’s offense. He said converted tight end Jordan Reed and true freshman quarterback Trey Burton both looked good in the spring. “We’ll certainly have two elements. We believe at Florida that one dimension is not who we are and how we’re going to move the ball. We’re going to have that element that’s not Johnny (Brantley) that you have to prepare for.”

9. Imagine that. Even Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs thinks Alabama is getting the shaft this season in having to face six teams in the league coming off bye weeks. “It’s unfair and has to be fixed,” Jacobs said. “I don’t know when it will be fixed. None of us want to be in that position, even though they won them all [in 2009].”

10. You gotta love LSU coach Les Miles’ response when asked if he considered cowbells an artificial noisemaker. “Maybe not in a pasture,” Miles said.

11. Alabama coach Nick Saban had the word of the week, referring to stuff he doesn’t want to deal with as “mouse manure.”

12. Georgia coach Mark Richt said Logan Gray would get most of his work this fall at receiver. But right now, he would still be the Bulldogs’ No. 2 quarterback behind redshirt freshman Aaron Murray.

13. The more you hear Richt talk about Murray, the more obvious it is that he was going to be the guy all along. “He led his team to a state championship and understands the team concept,” Richt said. “He’s got a very strong arm, a quick release and is more mobile than most people give him credit for. He’s very strong. If you saw him with his shirt off, you’d be surprised how physically strong he is.”

14. South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier had every chance to back off on some of his tough talk concerning junior quarterback Stephen Garcia, but the closest the Head Ball Coach would come to saying anything positive about Garcia was something along the lines of “Maybe he’ll come around. We hope he will. We’ll just have to see.”

15. Speaking of Spurrier, he’s as funny as ever … even when he’s not trying to be. He’s one of those rare head coaches who says whatever’s on his mind and doesn’t care who’s standing around to hear it. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say something was off the record.

16. It sounds like Barbara Dooley, the mother of first-year Tennessee coach Derek Dooley, has been talking a little too much for Dooley’s taste. “My mom showed up at the Atlanta Big Orange Caravan wrapped in orange,” Dooley said. “I had to remind her that the event was not for her. She’s developed a little bit of an icon status in Tennessee, and I’ve had to ban her from the state.” Asked why he banned her, Dooley cracked, “Because she violated the media policy, and she doesn’t really give a damn what I say.”

17. While Dooley is careful not to criticize his predecessor, Lane Kiffin, it’s obvious he wasn’t too keen on Kiffin’s “Lil Wayne talking trash” approach. “It wasn’t my style. It was Lane’s style, and that’s not to be critical," Dooley said. "I just don’t think it helps you win football games getting in verbal attacks with other people.”

18. Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt said the Rebels will have a package in place at quarterback for incoming junior college transfer Randall Mackey. “He’ll get a crash course. We’ll give him a small package and see if we can’t get him a role. He looks beautiful on film and has some unbelievable talent. Now, he’s just stepping on our campus, and SEC speed is different. There’s the playbook. So let’s see how he adjusts and how mature he is. Hopefully, there’s a role for him. We’ve got to give him the ball.”

19. Vanderbilt coach Bobby Johnson said it’s going to be critical that younger players come through in the offensive line and at receiver this season. The Commodores signed a pair of 6-4 receivers in Chris Boyd and Jordan Matthews, and Johnson is also eager to see what incoming freshman receiver Trent Pruitt of Fitzgerald, Ga., can do when preseason practice begins.

20. The SEC athletic directors approved a proposal that would still allow Mississippi State fans to ring their cowbells next season. But here’s the catch: They won’t be allowed to ring them while the game is being played. Timeouts are fine. The pregame is fine. Change of possessions are fine. But with the other team facing third-and-12 and backed up against its own goal line is not fine. It’s a compromise of sorts, and Mississippi State could potentially face fines if cowbells continue to clang away while the game is being played. Something tells me the Mississippi State athletic department had better be ready to ante up.

DESTIN, Fla. -- Coming off back-to-back nine-win seasons at Ole Miss, Houston Nutt looks and sounds like a guy who’s got his second wind.

Looking back, Nutt admits that making the move from Arkansas after 10 seasons in Fayetteville probably did re-energize him.

“It seems like you’re 5 years younger,” Nutt said.

Having the new challenge at Ole Miss has helped to erase a lot of the bitter memories from Nutt’s messy divorce with Arkansas. Changing locales has also given Nutt a new perspective on pressure.

“You can worry yourself sick thinking about how many more games do I need to win this year,” Nutt said. “You love being around your players and try to make a difference in their life. That’s what has been fun for us the last two years, building that belief that we can win.

“When I first got here, they hadn’t won a conference game, hadn’t gone to a bowl in four years. That part of it has been fun. That’s what we get lost in. We want them to graduate, want to win, want to go to bowl games -- and sometime, hopefully soon -- we hope to get to Atlanta.”

While the Rebels didn’t cash in on their lofty preseason expectations last year and live up to their top-5 billing, they did put together back-to-back nine-win seasons for the first time in nearly 50 years. The legendary John Vaught was coaching the Rebels the last time they won nine or more in successive seasons.

Nutt, asked if he thought it would ever get to a point in this league where nine wins simply wasn’t enough, couldn’t help from taking the bait.

“Oh, yeah, back where I was at my previous stop,” he said, his smile growing wider. “That’s the world we get into, the expectations. We won three Western Division titles [at Arkansas], got to Atlanta twice … and they want more. They want you to win it all, and that’s what we wanted to do, to win a national title. But it’s not that easy.”

The Rebels capped last season with their second straight Cotton Bowl victory, but the loss to arch-rival Mississippi State a month earlier in the regular-season finale still festers.

Mississippi State coach Dan Mullen hasn’t let anybody in the state forget, either. He’s taken delight in referring to Ole Miss as the “school up north.”

Nutt shook his head when asked if he’d come up with a second name for Mississippi State.

“I don’t get into that. I’ll let him handle the geographical things,” Nutt said.

DESTIN, Fla. -- Now that Florida coach Urban Meyer has proved to himself that he can get away for a few days in the offseason and the program’s not going to crumble, his appreciation for his staff has only soared.

But Meyer gave an extra shout-out to his strength and conditioning coach, Mickey Marotti, earlier this week at the SEC spring meetings.

Repeatedly, Meyer has called Marotti the best strength coach in America.

Why?

That's simple, according to Meyer. Look how good the Gators have been in the fourth quarter.

“You look at our success in the fourth quarter, our success in getting guys back from injury,” Meyer said. “That’s how you really evaluate a strength coach. Do you dominate the fourth quarter? Do you play hard in the fourth quarter? Do you have enough juice in the tank to finish a game? That’s how you evaluate a strength coach.

“I hear people say, ‘Well, this guys benches 600 pounds.’ We’re not evaluating bench-presses. We’re evaluating how a team performs in the fourth quarter. That’s not easy. You don’t start that in August, either. That starts in January and February. The body shuts down in the fourth quarter. The teams that can fight through that are the ones who win championships.”

DESTIN, Fla. -- Vanderbilt coach Bobby Johnson and school officials had signed off on a request by ESPN to move the season opener against Northwestern to Sunday afternoon (Sept. 5), which would have given both teams the national spotlight.

But Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald didn't want to do it, meaning the game will remain on Saturday.

A Northwestern official told ESPN.com's Adam Rittenberg that Fitzgerald's reasoning was that he didn't want to create a short week for his team on the opening weekend and have to travel back on Sunday night. Northwestern has Illinois State at home that following weekend, while Vanderbilt has LSU at home.

Northwestern was OK with playing on Thursday night or Friday night the previous week, but didn't want to go over into Sunday to play the game.

DESTIN, Fla. -- First-year Kentucky coach Joker Phillips has the Wildcats off and running in recruiting.

The Wildcats already have nine commitments, including ESPNU 150 member Jon Davis of Louisville. This time a year ago, they only had one commitment.

Phillips, who’s an excellent recruiter himself, likes the tone his staff is setting on the recruiting trail. The Wildcats have gone over into East Saint Louis, Ill., and landed a couple of highly rated players -- safety Glen Faulkner and defensive tackle Clint Tucker -- and also pulled receiver Darien Thomas out of Theodore, Ala.

Another one to watch on Kentucky’s radar is receiver Shamier Jeffery of Saint Matthews, S.C. He’s the younger brother of South Carolina receiver Alshon Jeffery, but is taking a long look at Kentucky.

Phillips has strong ties in the state of South Carolina, and former Tennessee quarterback Tee Martin, in his first year as the Wildcats’ receivers coach, has South Carolina as one of his recruiting areas.

The other thing that should help the Wildcats is that it’s a stronger year in the state of Kentucky.

Of course, Phillips will be battling his old buddy, first-year Louisville coach Charlie Strong, on most of those prospects.

Phillips joked that some people around the state are still having a hard time telling the two of them apart.

“Charlie goes places in Kentucky, and they call him Joker,” Phillips said. “I go to some places that they call me Charlie.

"So I guess we all look alike.”

DESTIN, Fla. -- Even when he was being ridiculed for hiring a guy with a 5-19 career head coaching record, Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs knew he’d hired the right guy.

More precisely, he knew he’d hired the right guy for Auburn.

The momentum in Auburn’s program right now is pretty obvious as Gene Chizik gets set to enter his second season. The Tigers are coming off a top-5 recruiting class nationally and won eight games a year ago, including an Outback Bowl victory over Northwestern, in Chizik’s debut season as the head man.

But there was a time when some on the Plains wanted Jacobs’ head for hiring Chizik in the first place.

Who could ever forget the footage of that obnoxious fan booing as Jacobs returned to the airport after completing the deal with Jacobs in December 2008?

And if you’ll remember, Charles Barkley wasn’t too kind to his alma mater, either.

Jacobs flashed an easy smile this week at the SEC spring meetings when asked if there were an extra sense of satisfaction for him to see the program prospering under Chizik.

“From the outside looking in, I can see how some people might think there’s extra satisfaction,” Jacobs said. “But from the beginning, I knew he had a plan and knew what it was. He’s just working the plan he submitted to me back in the very beginning. So ‘satisfaction’ is not the right word. He’s just working his plan to build us back to where we need to be.”

In other words, if you think Jacobs is going to be one of those guys to say, “I told you so,” think again.

That’s not his style.

What’s more, he knows it’s way too early to be making any hard and fast evaluations on the program after just one season.

“We’re still two signing classes away from having a team like we had in 2004,” said Jacobs, who was already plenty familiar with Chizik when he started his search because Chizik was the defensive coordinator on that unbeaten 2004 Auburn team.

Still, Jacobs knew Chizik would be a tough sell initially to the fans, and he was. But Jacobs never wavered in his belief that Chizik’s character traits made him an ideal fit for Auburn.

“The thing was that we were here to win football games, not to win press conferences,” Jacobs said. “There’s a fine line there because you can lose your fans. The Auburn people are passionate people, and their passion came to the top ... which it should.”

Many of those people who voiced their displeasure over the hire, including Barkley, have changed their tune.

How many?

Well, just like Jacobs wasn’t keeping count when he was being told how bad a hire he’d just made, he’s not keeping count now when people applaud the hire.

“I’m just here as a steward to this athletic department and am going to do what’s right,” Jacobs said. “That’s how it’s going to be, but I appreciate the passion of the Auburn people and appreciate how this coaching staff has come in and ignited the Auburn people.

“The Auburn people have come together, and we’re as unified now as we’ve ever been.”

DESTIN, Fla. -- The idea of an early signing period for football in the SEC has bounced around for the past couple of years.

But several coaches acknowledged Wednesday they don’t see it becoming a reality any time soon, especially in the proposed format.

The coaches don’t want to mix recruiting and coaching during the football season and are for an early signing period, possibly in November or December, only if that prospect hasn’t taken an official visit anywhere.

The athletic directors and presidents didn’t like that idea last year, and it doesn’t sound like much has changed.

“They’re listening. They’re really good about that, but I don’t think it’s going to happen,” Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt said. “I don’t think it has much legs. There’s still just a lot of talk and different scenarios that need to be worked out.”

LSU coach Les Miles hopes the league can continue exploring an early signing period and come up with a plan that works. But like Nutt, he doesn’t want to get into a situation where you’re trying to juggle official visits and coaching your team in the middle of September and October.

“We’re trying to find a date that fits a dead period without official visits and an opportunity for a guy who always wanted to go to LSU to sign early,” Miles said. “If a guy lives 30 miles away, he doesn’t need to come on official visit. He’s going to come. He’s committed to you. He should have the right to sign his papers and commit to that institution.”

The schools with fewer in-state prospects, specifically Arkansas and Tennessee, are not in favor of an early signing date.

DESTIN, Fla. -- Arkansas quarterback Ryan Mallett will resume throwing this week and is also running again after missing all of spring practice with a broken bone in his foot.

Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino said Mallett was right on schedule, if not ahead of schedule, in his recovery.

"He’s running straight ahead, and he’ll be throwing starting this week," Petrino said. "He’s doing well. He’s excited. We’re excited. We just have to make sure he doesn’t do something he’s not instructed to do."

This will be Mallett's second season playing in Petrino's offense and his third year in the program. Petrino said Mallett's talent level is off the charts.

"He’s pretty talented when you put the whole package together, his vision, his arm strength and his accuracy, Petrino said. "The thing that impresses me as much as anything about Ryan is his ability to throw the ball when he’s moving and how accurate he is."

Petrino wants to see Mallett be more consistent with his footwork next season and also trust his pass protection 100 percent of the time.

"Last year, we weren’t protecting well at times," Petrino said. "Every quarterback goes through it, where you lose your vision downfield and start looking at the rush. Obviously, it’s hard to complete passes when you do that."

DESTIN, Fla. -- For the time being, SEC commissioner Mike Slive will let everybody else speculate about expansion and what many are predicting will be a significant shift in the landscape of college athletics.

Slive’s stance is the same as it has been, and he’s not coming off that stance.

The SEC will sit, wait and watch and allow the Big Ten to make the first move -- or moves.

“Obviously, we will talk about it, and I'll share some thoughts,” Slive said concerning any expansion discussion this week at the SEC spring meetings. “But, basically, what we're going to say is what we've said. Given our success over the last decade, we’re pretty comfortable, as I think you all know.

“Having said that, if there's a significant shift in the conference paradigm, we will be thoughtful. We'll be strategic, and our goal is for us to maintain our position as one of the most successful conferences in the country. People have been drawing inferences from that. They'll continue to draw inferences from that, but really that’s about all we're going to say about it this week.”

Many of the SEC’s football coaches have asked as many questions about possible expansion scenarios the past couple of days as they’ve answered.

Nobody seems overly eager to bring in more teams to a conference that has already won the past four BCS national championships in football.

“This is just one man’s opinion, but I kind of like the way things are,” Florida’s Urban Meyer said. “The SEC has elevated itself to one of the top conferences, if not the top conference, in the last five years. I know nothing about expansion. I’m kind of curious what you guys are hearing about it.

“I can’t imagine making it a little stronger, a little tougher to win a few games. I don’t see it happening.”

Alabama’s Nick Saban suggested that the Big Ten’s longstanding pursuit of Notre Dame is what’s driving most of the expansion chatter.

“I don’t really know a lot about what’s going on out there,” Saban said. “Even when I was back in the Big Ten [at Michigan State], and I really think that’s the key to all this stuff, it was always about Notre Dame then. Each year, there was a big discussion about trying to get Notre Dame to join the Big Ten, and I think that’s a lot of what it’s about now.”

Several SEC officials have made it clear this week that they have no desire to start invading conferences just for the sake of adding teams.

The 1992 SEC expansion included a South Carolina team that was an independent and an Arkansas team that was part of a decaying Southwest Conference.

Now, if the Big 12 starts to crumble as a result of the Big Ten expanding, then clearly Texas and/or Texas A&M would be attractive to the SEC, especially when you consider the television market in Texas and the population numbers in that state.

The coaches say they will leave those decisions up to Slive and are confident he will make the right call.

And if it’s status quo that Slive decides on, it doesn’t sound like any of the football coaches in this league would be pouting.

Whatever happens, Georgia’s Mark Richt said he wouldn’t be in favor of adding additional conference games.

Eight is enough.

“I’d be shocked if we started looking around and saying, ‘Hey, what team do you think would be fun to add?’” Richt said. “I don’t think we’ll do that.”

DESTIN, Fla. -- Alabama coach Nick Saban is pleased with the way Mark Ingram has handled everything associated with being a Heisman Trophy winner.

Soon after Ingram won the award, Saban asked him three questions:

• How is this going to change you?
• How are you going to let it affect you because everyone else in your life is going to respond to you differently than you’re used to?
• How are you going to use this to affect somebody else in a positive way because of what you’ve accomplished?

"I don’t think he understood past the first one," Saban said. "But two days after that, he came in and said that he understood all three points and 'I’m going to try and manage it in the right way.'

"He’s done that. He had a good spring, and he and Trent [Richardson] have a tremendous amount of respect for each other. They’re both very good players, and the competition really makes them both better. I think it’s a healthy situation to have two quality players like that."

DESTIN, Fla. -- No recent legislation in college football has rankled Alabama coach Nick Saban any more than the rule preventing head coaches from going on the road recruiting during the spring evaluation period.

Saban was peeved when the rule was passed a few years ago, wondering out loud if the coaches who were willing to go the extra mile were being penalized because of those who wanted to stay at home during the spring.

Well, he’s still peeved.

Asked at the SEC spring meetings about his offseason regimen and how it’s changed over the years, Saban pounced on the question. It didn’t take him long, either, to reference the spring evaluation period.

“The only thing that changes my offseason regimen is during spring recruiting … now that we’re not allowed to do that,” Saban said. “That was something I really enjoyed doing. I liked going to watch practice. I liked watching guys. I think you promote high school football when you do that, but I also think you can always make a better evaluation of a player if you can see him first-hand. It’s sort of like the cross checks you would do in the NFL when you’re getting ready for the draft. You needed one person to see all the best players to figure out who 1-2-3-4-5 was, and that’s what I used to do in the spring and I enjoyed doing that. I really did.

“But now not being able to do that, you have a little bit more time, a little bit more speaking [engagements]. So I have time to do more things that I don’t enjoy as much.”

Saban joked that he does go to his Lake Burton vacation home in Georgia “whenever [wife] Mrs. Terry wants to go … whether I was spring recruiting or not. If she wants to go, I go. So there was no effect on that.”

As he has several times now, Saban emphasized that Alabama would be his last coaching stop.

In talking about his decision to leave Michigan State and the Big Ten for LSU and the SEC back in 2000, Saban said, “I think it’s always a difficult decision to leave any place and to go someplace else, and it’s a decision I’m never going to make again. I’m where I am. If they get a team at Lake Burton, then I might go there. But other than that, I’m where I’m at.”

DESTIN, Fla. -- Former Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin wasn't around for Steve Spurrier to gig this year at the SEC spring meetings, but the Head Ball Coach was still in full form Tuesday.

While waiting for Kiffin's successor, Derek Dooley, to finish up with the media in the room designated for interviews at the Sandestin Hilton, Spurrier greeted Dooley as he exited and chortled, "Derek, I almost had to put you on the clock."

Later, when Orlando Sentinel reporter Jeremy Fowler introduced himself to Spurrier, the Head Ball Coach said, "Yeah, Jeremy, how come your buddies didn't come to your defense that day?"

Fowler was the reporter Florida coach Urban Meyer went after verbally on the practice field "that day" this past spring.

Spurrier also wasn't relenting on whether junior quarterback Stephen Garcia would be ready to lead the Gamecocks this fall.

"It's still wait and see," said Spurrier, who's been down on Garcia's commitment and work ethic. "Hopefully, he'll come around."

Spurrier has said he won't hesitate to play true freshman Connor Shaw next season if Garcia doesn't recommit himself this summer. As for his reputation of being overly hard on his quarterbacks, Spurrier cracked, "If you play well, I'd say I'm pretty easy to play for."

Spurrier then added, "Stephen Garcia went the distance last year. He went the distance because we had nobody else to put back there."

Somebody also asked Spurrier about how well equipped he thought John Brantley was to replace a legend like Tim Tebow next season.

Spurrier started out by noting that Brantley will be going into his third year next season at Florida.

But then came the zinger.

"Doug (Johnson) tried to replace Danny Wuerffel (in 1997). Doug was out playing baseball and drinking beer all summer," Spurrier said. "Doug's a bright young man, got a good job down there and doing very well ... but that was his summer prior to starting for the Gators."

DESTIN, Fla. -- If Georgia coach Mark Richt really is on the hot seat, he's not feeling it.

"I didn't know I was (on the hot seat)," Richt said in his vintage easy-going manner. "Is that true?"

Always one of the more graceful coaches in the league, Richt made light Tuesday of the growing speculation around the league that his job may not be safe going into the 2010 season.

Entering his 10th season at Georgia, Richt has the longest tenure of any current SEC coach at one school. South Carolina's Steve Spurrier has said in the past, and reiterated Tuesday, that 10 to 12 years is probably about as long as anybody (presidents or head coaches) should stay at one school.

Richt countered that he came from Florida State, where Bobby Bowden coached for more than three decades with great success before being forced to retire following last season.

What's more, Richt said he doesn't get caught up in outside pressure.

"My mindset has always been, 'Let’s do what I think we need to do to succeed and try not to be influenced by anything other than the people who are closest to the program,'" Richt said. "My goal has always been to try and conduct myself in a way that the university would be proud of and my Lord and Savior would be proud, too.

"So I’m trying to do things with a lot of integrity and a lot of character, and hopefully, we’re winning games and we’re still educating young men. You want to win, absolutely. But we also want these guys to get their degrees. We want these guys to be preparing for life after football.

"We think you can have it all."

DESTIN, Fla. -- Florida coach Urban Meyer ventured out and experienced things this offseason that he's never previously done during his head-coaching career.

He took his daughter to The Masters, visited Rome, even took in a Jimmy Buffett concert.

But, no, he didn’t meet the Pope, as was suggested in some media reports.

“We went on a little family trip and got to see him, big Gator fan. We talked about third down and 6,” beamed Meyer, who was obviously joking.

“No ... I did not meet him.”

Meyer, looking relaxed and fit, met with several reporters Tuesday prior to the start of the SEC spring meetings at the Sandestin Hilton.

For the first time, he expounded on what was at the root of his chest pains last December that initially led to his shocking resignation. He changed his mind the next day and said he would instead take an extended leave of absence.

“The biggest thing was I wanted to find out what those darned chest pains were, and I did … esophageal spasms,” revealed Meyer, who was rushed to the hospital with severe chest pains the morning after Florida's SEC championship game loss to Alabama.

“They’ve got me on some medication. I’ve just got to be smarter in the future, and I’m going to be. I’m not going to let that happen again.”

According to MedlinePlus, esophageal spasms are abnormal contractions of the muscles in the esophagus, preventing food from effectively moving to the stomach. The cause is unknown.

Meyer said he hasn’t had any issues with chest pains since the end of January, but said it was like “waking up every morning with a toothache in your chest” for the last three years.

Even though his extra time away during the offseason was termed a leave of absence by Florida, Meyer stopped short Tuesday of referring to it as a full-fledged leave.

"I don’t know about 'leave,'" Meyer said. "I’m not quite sure 'leave' is the right word. I talk to a lot of coaches, and a lot of them do it without saying 'leave.' They take a couple of weeks off here or a couple of days off here.

"What I’ve got to do is learn to really trust our staff and empower people and give them opportunities to grow. They’ve done a great job. We have a great staff. We have the best strength coach in America. To sit there and micro-manage our strength program would be nonsense, and I did that for a few years. I’m very pleased with the way it’s going right now."

Meyer said being able to get away with his family this offseason was soothing. It was also a reminder that he didn't need to be at the office every waking second.

“I feel fantastic, and I have a better appreciation for the guys around me, to just bolt for five days,” Meyer said. “I’ve never done that in my life, to say, 'Here, you guys got it.’

“The stadium’s still standing. Guys are working out, getting faster, graduating. It’s going well.”