Before Urban Meyer became Bowling Green’s head coach in the early 2000s, there wasn’t much for the team to show on the field. The program came off a 2-win season, and recruiting was middling. For Meyer, though, freshly entering into coaching, it was a challenge. To show his coaching prowess, he turned to Josh Harris, who was splitting sporadic reps between QB and tailback. Immediately, he turned him into a full-time QB, and the rest is history.

In the 2002 season, Meyer helped Harris throw for 2,425 yards as he continued his rushing prowess, notching 737 rushing yards. In no time, Bowling Green, a middling MAC program, finished with a 9-3 record. That was the impact Meyer hoped to replicate wherever he went. And it all happened because of advice he got from his friend, who was a Father, when Meyer was coaching WRs at Notre Dame.

“He said, ‘I got to talk to you.’ When I got the head coaching job,” Meyer recalled on the Triple Option Podcast’s July 13 episode. “I said, ‘What’s up,’ and he said, ‘Son, do you remember there’s a difference between making a decision and making a suggestion?’ I go, ‘Of course.’ He goes, ‘Well, up to now in professional life, you made nothing but suggestions. And from this point forward, you’re going to make decisions.’

“‘And son, it’s going to impact a lot of people’s lives.’ And then he put his hand on my body and said a prayer for me. It hit me right in the jaw. And then it can’t be more true cuz it all goes through you. All the game management decisions go through you, but in the big picture, it’s the impact that the decisions have on young people.”

Until the Bowling Green job in 2001, Meyer didn’t have his moment under the sun. But the new head coaching job came with the immense responsibility of turning around a losing program. What that advice probably did was divert Meyer’s focus from that very task. Instead, it showed him how several people’s lives and careers depended on his decisions. And that’s where Meyer got his calling as a head coach. From then on, everything Meyer did was for a purpose.

Harris probably remembers Meyer’s impact clearly to this day. Trailing 14-0 against Western Michigan, Harris had put “three and out” twice before coming off the field. Many coaches would have lost trust in their QBs and would have gone for an easier punt on fourth down. Not Urban Meyer. The former Bowling Green head coach called for a fake punt, and like magic, Harris converted it into a first down. The team won 48-45 in overtime. That was a moment when Harris felt how good a coach Meyer was. 

“One thing for sure, when coach Meyer believes in a guy, he might even believe in him more than the guy believes in himself,” Harris said about Meyer to Cleveland.com in 2011. “There was a time when I had to get my belief in Josh Harris up to where Urban Meyer believed that Josh Harris was. That really propelled me, and my game, to new levels.”

Later in his coaching years, Meyer became overly dedicated to his job. The unending desire to propel his players to the highest levels never ended. Because of that, he even missed major family events, including his daughter Gigi’s scholarship signing. His health also started to take a toll, but that unwavering hunger for impact remained. And that shows through the 23 total NFL first-round draft picks he sent during his whole career as a head coach.