When Stan Drayton left UF to become the running backs coach at rival Tennessee, it ended a rocky working relationship with Urban Meyer.
Drayton said his time at UF was frustrating, and former Gators running back Anthony Gay can attest to that, too.
He left the team before the 2006 season due to multiple failed drug tests, but before his career ended, Gay had meetings with Drayton and Meyer and picked up on the fact that his head coach and position coach weren't all that friendly.
"They ain't like this," said Gay, holding up crossed fingers to visually describe it in a September interview. "They're not even really tight. A lot of days, I've seen Coach Drayton shed tears before. Not in front of (Meyer), but right after practice because of how he acknowledged him, because of how he belittled him."
A source close to the situation said Drayton was told to look for another job, but Drayton reportedly said that he was not fired.
Attempts to reach Meyer and Drayton through UF and Tennessee's sports information departments were unsuccessful. Drayton's voicemail on a Gainesville phone number was full, and he did not respond to a text message.
No matter how strained the relationship between the two coaches was, it wasn't the sole reason for Drayton's flight from Gainesville.
Gay had nothing but praise for Drayton's coaching abilities, but the 36-year-old was the lowest-paid assistant on Meyer's staff, earning ,135,000 per year.
Meyer also might not have had much use for Drayton compared to other assistants since running backs play a smaller role in his spread offense than at other schools, like Tennessee, which have stable running games.
"The offense that we were running at Florida didn't have much involvement from the running back," Drayton told the Knoxville News-Sentinel. "There was some frustration there, to be honest with you. But you're in a community that's very supportive of Florida. Florida's been good to me for three years. It was a very comfortable situation, it really was. Urban Meyer made it a very comfortable situation for me."
The situation leading to Drayton's lateral coaching move, a decision made on Sunday and announced on Tuesday, was not so comfortable.
Drayton told the paper that Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer called Meyer on Friday morning, likely to ask for permission to speak with Drayton.
Meyer reportedly left a staff meeting to answer the phone, returned and dismissed everyone but Drayton from the room.
"I can't go into too much detail, but it was a little rough, a little rocky," Drayton told the paper. "He had a coach that was getting ready to entertain a situation at his rival school. I understood that completely."
