Urban Meyer Reflects on Ending Career with a Rose Bowl Win

Urban Meyer, who led the Ohio State Buckeyes to a win over Washington in the 2019 Rose Bowl game, recently reflected on what it was like for him to close out his collegiate coaching career with a victory on New Year’s Day.

“I’ve been pretty good over my career being able to lock in and focus in on what’s important,” Meyer, who won three national championships and 180 games during his collegiate coaching career, said on Fox Sports’ “Ring Chronicles.” Meyer is now a college football analyst for the Fox Network.

Said Meyer, “It was very emotional for me because I had never been to the Rose Bowl. I grew up as a Buckeye fan, I grew up in the great state of Ohio and I remember the Buckeyes in the ’70s playing in the Rose Bowl against USC and watching Archie Griffin start for four years.

“That was the only major bowl game we’d never been to,” 247sports.com reported. “We went it and really the first three quarters we were on fire, it was 28-3 at halftime. We dominated that first half and our guys were really ready to play. You always remember your last game, especially if it’s the Rose Bowl.”

The Buckeyes beat the Huskies by a score of 28-23.

The website reported that it was an emotional lead-up to the game, as Meyer had previously made it public that he would retire following the Rose Bowl.

Former Ohio State Buckeyes starting quarterback Dwayne Haskins said that he cried when he found out that the Rose Bowl — also Haskins’ final game as a Buckeye — would also mark the end of an era in the college football coaching landscape. Haskins, during the same episode of “Ring Chronicles,” recalled the emotions that he experienced when he and his teammates learned of Meyer’s decision.

“For me, I cried,” Haskins recalled. “I didn’t cry in front of the team, but for me watching (him) at Florida, hearing about him at Utah with Alex Smith and being around him he molded me into the player that I was at Ohio State. We just said we’re gonna lead Coach out with a bang in the Granddaddy of Them All, probably the best bowl game in college sports. The whole opportunity to play in the Rose Bowl and Coach being his last game, we had to make sure we came out with a win.”

“Knowing that it was his last game and knowing that we were going to California with a whole bunch of distractions there, make sure we were focused, locked in the whole time we were getting ready for Washington who had a great defense. We had to go in there and play our best game. We knew that we weren’t gonna let Coach down.”