Urban's renewal makes Florida's neighborhood more dangerous

Look, if Urban Meyer wants some time off, fine, but before he tells his next story ("I only want to coach the offense," "I only want to coach on Saturdays and Wednesdays," "I want someone else to handle the media and the late-night calls from the cops"), he should keep in mind that this is all material for Lane Kiffin's next comedy album.

Meyer's change of heart (no pun intended) has been faithfully documented by Comrade Dodd, and like everyone else, he notices the faint smell of retirer's remorse amidst all the verbal misdirection, obfuscation and my-dog-ate-my-homework. It makes less sense the more you read it, watch it and hear it, and though your understanding of it is beside the point, it manages to come right down Kiffin's wheelhouse.

Kiffin's, and Nick Saban's, and all the other folks who have been lining up waiting for Meyer to show his soft underbelly. And no, we're not talking about his health problem.

We're talking about his can't-give-a-straight-answer problem, and his I'll-be-back-when-I'm-back problem. If an inability to explain a retirement-turned-leave-of-absence-turned-family-vacation can't be twisted into the advantage of a serial provocateur like Kiffin, or a recruiting flesh-eater like Saban, or any of the other vampires of the Southeastern Conference, then we don't know our vampires.

Meyer has always seemed uncomfortable explaining himself, which works only when the subject isn't yourself. He likes being the distant visage -- Mount Rushmore's fifth head, the one that has that perpetual dyspeptic scowl.

It's what made him so mighty and yet so vulnerable -- the coaching colossus built too inflexibly to sway with the wind when sway is needed.

It's also what makes him such an eager target for folks like Kiffin, who isn't two-thirds the coach but twice as adept at playing the P.R. game. He will work this like a marionette, using Meyer's Sarah Bernhardt thing as a running punch line while Saban whispers sweet tales of absenteeism into the ears of vulnerable young recruits.

Thus, Meyer's return, whenever it happens, will be when the program is at maximum disadvantage, swirling uncertainly about while it waits for him to relocate his desire. And while it is easy to say that he could then return as the conquering savior, he was already the conquering savior. All he would be doing upon his return is reclaiming ground he already won, wasted effort for a man who already vibrates like a tuning fork, and therefore hardly a motive for a walkabout.

In short, Urban Meyer's apparent indecision about what he wants or why he wants it or how to go about getting it doesn't so much make him look like a ditherer, or even some sort of Machiavellian attention whore. It does, however, open the door for people to be feared, like Saban, or people to be swatted, like Kiffin. It makes Meyer's job a whole lot harder the next time around, which increases the stress he already says ground him down this time.

It all falls under the "You Can't Go Home Again" part of the coaches' handbook. He would have been better off not just getting his story straight, but getting his future straight before he got his story straight. Urban Meyer is about to find out that no job is harder than competing against an idealized version of yourself.

Not even being the butt of a Lane Kiffin joke.

Ray Ratto is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle