‘Elite at the hard things’: What Urban Meyer shared with the Utes — and their new head coach

In a fast-moving photo montage posted by the Utah football social media account, one photo stood out — former Utah football coach Urban Meyer embracing current Utah coach Morgan Scalley.

Meyer was around the program at least once a year when Kyle Whittingham was running the show, and now that Scalley is in charge, he continued the tradition by inviting his former coach to a practice last week.

Meyer transformed Utah’s football program, picking up from where Ron McBride left off and taking the Utes to new heights.

After arriving in Salt Lake City from Bowling Green, Meyer engineered the team’s first 10-win season since 1994, defeating an Aaron Rodgers-led Cal team in front of what was then the largest crowd in Rice-Eccles Stadium history, beating then-No. 19 Oregon and capping off the regular season with a 3-0 victory over BYU to clinch the Utes’ first outright conference championship since 1957. Utah defeated Southern Miss in the Liberty Bowl to reach 10 wins.

In 2004, the Utes began the season ranked No. 20 in the Associated Press poll, marking the first time Utah had opened a season with a number next to its name. The success from last season, combined with returning experience all over the field, created a buzz in the facility and among Utah fans that it would be a special season.

Meyer’s spread option offense — then a fairly novel concept, now run by the vast majority of college teams — was a perfect fit for junior quarterback Alex Smith, who put up 2,952 yards and 32 touchdowns through the air and 631 yards and 10 touchdowns on the ground in a season that landed him in New York City as a Heisman Trophy finalist.

Utah steamrolled through each and every opponent in a dominant 2004 season, including a 41-21 blowout of Texas A&M to open the regular season and a 52-21 drubbing of BYU to close it.

While the Utes’ offense got all the headlines — it was near-unstoppable, averaging 45.3 points per game (third in the nation) — the Whittingham-coached defense was pretty good, too, allowing just 19.5 points per game (23rd in the country).

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One of the leaders on that defense was none other than Scalley, a senior who had a team-high six interceptions on the season and a memorable 88-yard fumble return for a touchdown against Colorado State.

Utah closed out the season by becoming the first team from a non-automatic qualifying conference to crash the BCS party, defeating Pittsburgh 35-7 in the Fiesta Bowl.

After that, Meyer was on to Florida, while Utah promoted Whittingham, who had a 21-year run that ended with him becoming the Utes’ winningest head coach and leading the team to a Sugar Bowl win and two Pac-12 titles.

Twenty-two years after that undefeated 2004 season, Scalley is now Utah’s head coach in a full-circle moment.

“He’s a competitive maniac. He understands the game. He was a coach on the field,” Meyer said of Scalley ahead of his introductory press conference. “Incredible leadership, he elevated those around him. Utah’s in a great position for years to come.”

Scalley invited Meyer to check out practice and had him speak to the team last week.

“Coach Meyer obviously knows how to win football games, knows how to motivate football teams and nothing but love for him and what he did for this university, did for me, and was great to have him back,” Scalley said.

Scalley said Meyer’s message to the team centered around being “elite at the hard things.”

“If you want to be elite, you have to focus on becoming elite at the hard things. If you’re a wide receiver, the No. 1 thing they wake up to is not, ‘I can’t wait to go block.’ They want to score a touchdown,” Scalley recounted. “So it’s understanding what are the hard things in my position that I’m asked to do and focus on that every single day. Because if I can master the hard, right, then I’m much more of a complete player.”

Offensive lineman Zereoue Williams expanded on Meyer’s message.

“He said the hard is now. The hard is now. So we want to do the hard drills and do the hard practices now so that when game day comes, it’s just natural stuff,” Williams said.

While Meyer is busy during the season with Fox’s traveling “Big Noon Kickoff” pregame show, he’ll always be there as a mentor to Scalley.