Florida All-American Reveals How Urban Meyer Treated Starters, Practice Squad Players

Urban Meyer was a disaster in the NFL. As a college football coach, though, former Florida Gators All-American Maurkice Pouncey believes Meyer was one of the best to ever do it.

Why? College football allowed Meyer to "change kids into men," Pouncey said.

"That's the thing I always took from that aspect (of life)," Pouncey told The Pivot podcast this week. "Especially with how our dad raised us. It was always 'the man' aspect of it, like, you have to earn what you're speaking of. You have to earn your food. That's how Coach Meyer was.

"If you played on that field, he treated you like a king. If you were just a practice squad player, that's what you was. You had to either get in trouble or do something to stand out for Coach Meyer to acknowledge that. I always appreciated that."

Urban Meyer and the 2009 Florida Gators were unlike any other college football team

I'd imagine you did, Maurkice! After all, you were one of the best to do it under Meyer's watch.

The Pouncey Twins were legendary during their time at Florida, blocking for Tim Tebow and Percy Harvin and yupping it out with buddy Aaron Hernandez after hours.

Maurkice played center, while twin brother Mike Pouncey played guard , and both were absolute STUDS.

Both fellas were All-Americans, both won National Championships, and both went on to have long, extremely successful NFL careers.

So yes, I'd imagine both guys were treated like kings during the Urban Meyer era in Florida.

As for those practice squad walk-ons? Urban doesn't have time for that nonsense! You're either putting up numbers on Saturday, or you're just another number Monday-Friday.

If you look at those Florida Gators teams during Meyer's run, it wasn't exactly hard to figure out who was a king.

Those rosters included Tebow, Harvin, the Pouncey Brothers, HERNANDEZ, Riley Cooper, CAM NEWTON, Major Wright and Brandon Spikes.

The team won the BCS National Title in 2009 and made one final run at it the following season before things went south. Those teams were so loaded, Netflix was reportedly in Gainesville this past summer filming a documentary on it.

Anyway, Maurkice went on to be Ben Roethlisberger's best blocker for a decade in Pittsburgh, and said Mike Tomlin was very Urban Meyer-esque in the film room.

Here's the clip: