Urban Meyer was recently pitched to be the next Auburn Tigers head football coach amid a 3-2 start to the season under Hugh Freeze. And apparently, AU won't be the only school that will register interest in the 61-year-old.
Saturday Blitz's Dan Lower believes the Arkansas Razorbacks, LSU Tigers, and Clemson Tigers could become competition for Meyer this offseason. Lower urged Auburn not to wait too long and let Meyer go to one of their SEC rivals, or Clemson.
"Right now, the SEC is seeing unprecedented parity. There are five undefeated teams, and none of them are Alabama, Georgia, LSU, Tennessee, or Texas. There might not be a better time to awaken a sleeping giant of a team and fanbase like Auburn than now," Lower wrote.
"If Meyer has another run in him, Auburn should definitely get him on board before someone else does. And other SEC teams are likely to change coaches this winter. Arkansas is already in the hunt, and LSU could join them if Brian Kelly can't deliver this year. And Clemson in the ACC is another team that might look at Meyer.
"If Auburn has interest in Urban Meyer, they should get moving now, before someone else does and they miss the boat."
Meyer returning to college football for the sake of it isn't overly likely. The former national champion head coach with the Ohio State Buckeyes and Florida Gators isn't going to come back into a questionable situation. Most of the situations mentioned qualify as questionable, to say the least.
USA Today's Matt Hayes may have simply floated Meyer's name to stress how bad things have been on the Plains. The piece felt like an on-ramp to mocking Freeze and Bruce Pearl more so than it felt like a serious suggestion.
LSU makes more sense for Urban Meyer than Auburn, Arkansas, Clemson
Besides LSU, every option is questionable to a degree. Especially AU, considering how Freeze and Bryan Harsin's tenures have gone. Arkansas has many of the same issues, while Clemson, without Dabo Swinney, is a complete question mark. Hell, at 1-3, Clemson is a question mark now.
The Bayou Bengals are the most intriguing fit of the bunch. LSU has the kind of spending power that can rival Meyer's former employers while also offering the strongest championship pedigree of the bunch.
That doesn't guarantee Meyer will usurp Brian Kelly. A Meyer return is unlikely regardless of the landing spot pitched. But LSU feels like the least of a stretch of these schools.