Ok, well, forgive the obvious (and poorly executed) comparison, but Urban Meyer sure did seem to be channeling Mike  Gundy today after a Florida Gators' spring practice.

Photographic evidence of Meyer's confrontation with a reporter from the Orlando Sentinel has been produced, and it sure does seem to support the story that has been leaked so far.

Meyer's beef appears to have originated in a quote the reporter, Jeremy Fowler, published in what does appear to be an out-of-context manner. You can read the linked article above for yourself, but ultimately, all the reporter did was publish a poorly-written, bad-journalistic-form report taking a player's quote (apparently) clearly out of context. In doing so, he implied that the player was saying John Brantley was a "real quarterback," and Tim Tebow was not. The report was then picked up and run by some national media outlets.  So, instead of allowing Deonte Thompson to clarify his position the next day (or, at worst, standing with Deonte in front of the media to "help" him clarify his position)... well, let's just say he didn't take 'em to People's Court.

As practice wound down and players slowly exited the field, Meyer approached a reporter from the Orlando Sentinel in front of about two dozen media members and had a heated exchange over an article the reporter had written about receiver Deonte Thompson.

"You’re a bad guy, man. You’re a bad guy," Meyer told Sentinel reporter Jeremy Fowler. "If that was my son we’d be going at it right now."

Now that line by itself does kind of sound like that Seinfeld episode where Babu calls Jerry a, "very very bad man."  

When you factor in that this was also said:

"I told you this five years ago – don’t mess with our players. Don’t do it – you did it," Meyer said. "You do it one more time and the Orlando Sentinel’s not welcome here ever again. Is that clear? It’s yes or no."

And it was said at a time that this was happening:

via blogs.palmbeachpost.com

Let's just put it this way... I see the strong possibility for an apology coming from the Gator athletic department in the near future.

From a broader standpoint, though, this just confirms to me that Urban Meyer has a) no perspective tempered with wisdom, and b) apparently no self control.  Don't you think that Mark Richt gets upset when one of his athletes is arrested by the Keystone Kops for frickin' exiting an alley?  Or when a reporter runs a story saying that the defensive players aren't putting in time in the weight room and the offensive players are grumbling about it?  Or when his hardworking, best team-leader senior QB gets raked over the coals so many times he looks himself like a smoldering ember?  You have never, however, seen Mark Richt get all up in somebody's junk and give them the business like this.

Urban Meyer has no class and 2 conference and 2 national championships.  Mark Richt is the epitome of class and has 2 conference and 0 national championships.  Give me Mark Richt every day of the week, and twice on Saturday.