Travis Etienne Jr. recalls how Urban Meyer lost his dressing room

The Jacksonville Jaguars have experienced a historic turnaround under Liam Cohen 2025 The first-year coach led Jacksonville to 12 wins after the team finished 4-13 last season. The Jaguars can win the AFC South by beating the Tennessee Titans in Week 18. They also have an outside shot at the top seed if things break down for them this weekend.

But while Jacksonville is on the cusp of its first 13-win season in 26 years, Travis Etienne Jr. revisited one of the franchises the darkest periods. Jaguars RB talked about Urban Meier debacle on the podcast St. Brown.

“Urban, he was just very hypocritical because I remember one time… we played the Bengals and he stayed there. He didn’t come back with the team. He just stayed and they caught him on tape,” Etienne recalled. “And then he came in and tried to address each meeting room individually and he was basically just in there shutting it down. They put the video out there so it was just crazy to see. And I feel like once that happened, he lost the locker room and it was all downhill from there.”

Travis Etienne remembers Urban Meyer’s short run with the Jaguars

The Jaguars hired Meyer before the 2021 season. While a veteran head coach, all of his experience came at the college level. And his first (and only) season in the NFL didn’t end well.

Meyer got off to a good start, selecting Trevor Lawrence and Etienne in the first round of the 2021 draft. But for some reason, Etienne was forced to perform all of his repetitions in a wider position during the training camp. This was strange because Meyer selected him as the second running back on the board at No. 25 overall.

Etienne suffered a serious Lisfranc injury during the pre-season and did not make his debut until the following year. But he was there to watch Mayer’s season derail.

As Etienne mentioned, Meyer stayed in Ohio after the Jaguars’ loss to the Bengals. The first-year coach has already struggled with an 0-4 start. But then Meyer was caught on video misbehaving with a woman who was not his wife. According to Etienne, that was when he lost his dressing room.

Meyer went 2-11 before being fired midway through his first NFL season. He has not returned to coaching since then.