FLORIDA 'Swamp' starts to feel like home for Meyer

The new Florida coach toured the campus where he hopes to stay for awhile.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) -- Urban Meyer's eyes widened as he looked around Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
He saw references to the school's six Southeastern Conference titles, two Heisman Trophy winners and the 1996 national championship.
It wasn't his first trip to The Swamp, but it sure felt different.
This was home now.
"This is a place you can put your feet down hopefully for a long time," Meyer said.
The former Utah coach toured the Florida campus Tuesday and met his new team for the first time since agreeing to a seven-year, $14 million contract last week. He also was formally introduced as the Gators' next coach.
Nothing but positives
And he said all the right things. He talked about exceeding expectations, praised coach Steve Spurrier, said he has no aspirations to coach in the NFL and even took shots at rivals Florida State and Tennessee.
"In this profession, this is the premier job in the country," he said. "You have a chance to win right away, you play in a great conference, you have all the resources you need and you have the top recruits in your backyard."
Although Meyer will coach the fifth-ranked Utes against No. 19 Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl, he already has started working for the Gators.
He called recruits over the weekend and started what will be a difficult month of transition from one program to the other.
He spent the weekend celebrating his team's Bowl Championship Series berth, had dinner with Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley on Monday and flew to Gainesville on a private jet with his wife and three children Tuesday morning.
Bringing back memories
Then he got a complete tour, capped by his visit to the recently renovated stadium that displayed an altered photo of Meyer on both scoreboards wearing an orange and blue Gators jacket.
It wasn't his first trip to Gainesville. That came in the late 1990s, when he was working as receivers coach at Notre Dame.
He had been charged with recruiting Florida and was driving north to Lake City to visit a player when he decided to stop by the university. He wanted to see the school several big-time recruits were choosing over the Irish.
What was supposed to be an hour diversion turned into two.
A Spurrier fan
"I think I still have the parking ticket," he said. "I'm glad I know the president. I might be able to get it taken care of."
He knew plenty about Florida even before then because he watched the Spurrier-coached Gators every chance he got.
"I fell in love with the way they played, the way they walked, the way they talked, the way they took the field, the way they came off the field, the way they scored points," Meyer said.
Meyer acknowledged that expectations will be higher than ever now. Instead of building programs at Bowling Green and Utah, he replaces Ron Zook, who was fired despite three winning seasons and several top recruiting classes.
Bowling Green went 17-6 in two seasons under Meyer. Utah has gone a combined 21-2 the last two years, which made Meyer the most wanted coach in the country and prompted Foley to call him a "perfect fit" for the Gators.