College daze

 Time now to check on the wheres and what-fors of Urban Meyer, the latest college icon to burst into flames in the NFL, although Urban says those aren't flames we're seeing, and that's not smoke, either, and he'll fire anyone who says otherwise.

This after word leaked out that life in Urbanville, aka Jacksonville, ain't exactly copasetic these days. According to the leaker, old Urb has alienated his coaching staff by calling them a bunch of losers, and lost his locker room because (a consistent theme among autocratic college coaches) he can't seem to treat them like grown-ass men.

Urb's defenders say this is all just part of his trying to "change the culture" in J-ville, which makes the Blob laugh like it hasn't in who knows when. Yeah, he's trying to "change the culture," all right. He's trying to turn the Jaguars into Ohio State.

This never works for a variety of reasons, chief among them being that Urb isn't dealing with college kids or underpaid assistants who'll endure all manner of abuse to keep climbing that coaching ladder. A whole pile of guys have gone that route and failed; Steve Spurrier, Lou Holtz, Nick Saban, Chip Kelly, on and on. 

College coaches of that stripe run their programs like private fiefdoms. The NFL, with a few notable exceptions, doesn't do fiefdoms. It's a totally different culture, speaking of changing cultures.

So, the education of Urban goes on, though it doesn't seem to be taking. His response to the leaks was to say it's all a bunch of lies, and that he would find the leaker and fire him, like, yesterday.

 Unfortunately for him, he'll find that a hell of a lot harder to do than he did in his old college fiefdom. And it's pretty comical to paint it all as malicious falsehoods after that 20-0 laydown against the Titans, which featured eight rushing yards for the Jags and four interceptions from prize rookie quarterback Trevor Lawrence.

That dropped the Jags to 2-11 on the season. And right now they look like nothing so much as a bunch of guys who just want to get this nightmare over with.

Culture be damned.