Belichick now makes an annual, offseason pilgrimage to Gainesville; he's also friends with Florida basketball coach Billy Donovan, who played college basketball in New England, at Providence.
Most significantly, Belichick has soaked up and incorporated elements of Meyer's spread offense. Meyer, however, is quick to tell you that it isn't really his offense, anyway, that, "Most of my ideas are ones that I have borrowed from someone else," adding, "The whole concept of the spread offense started from visiting other great offensive minds."
Said Belichick: "Sometimes, I bounce stuff off him. Sometimes, he bounces stuff off me. I value his opinion and advice when he gives it to me. I appreciate it."
Their alliance has grown since that day in March 2005 when Belichick, fresh off Super Bowl victory No. 3, picked up the phone and called Meyer, who had just arrived in Gainesville after his Utah team became the first non-BCS school to earn its way into a BCS bowl game, then scored a crushing victory over Pitt.
Although the two had mutual friends in coaching and ties to Ohio -- Meyer was born and began his coaching career there; Belichick's family has roots in Ohio, and Belichick coached the Browns in the '90s -- Meyer had to be convinced it was really Belichick on the line.
"Since I didn't have a relationship with him, I thought my assistant, Nancy, was pulling my leg," Meyer said. "My relationship began when he called her and asked if he could meet with me. I was out of the office and hurried back to meet him."
At the time, Meyer had some draft-eligible players Belichick wanted to check out. But Belichick also was interested in Meyer's offense.
"I went down there (to Gainesville), and it was good for me," Belichick said. "The offense he runs is very ... I won't say it's a pro-style offense, but it's an open offense that has a lot of pro elements to it.
"From what I know about Urban, he runs a program similar to the way we run our program, so we talked about lots of things relative to technical football, Xs and Os, how to deal with different stuff that's common (to both pro and college football)."
