ORLANDO – When Urban Meyer surfaced as a candidate for the football coaching vacancy at Florida, Jack Youngblood’s phone began ringing.

Youngblood, a former Florida great and an NFL hall-of-fame defensive end best known for playing a game in the 1979 playoffs with a broken leg, said the callers had the same request.

“I had some folks call me and ask me to make some phone calls and get my opinion of [Meyer],” Youngblood said Wednesday after Meyer spoke to the Central Florida Gator Club. “And I did.”

So who called? Was it athletic director Jeremy Foley? University president Bernie Machen?

“No,” Youngblood said. “The Bull Gators.”

The power behind the program – Bull Gators donate a minimum of $12,000 a year – needed an authoritative recommendation. If Youngblood, at 56 still the coolest guy in any room, gave that recommendation, Meyer’s hiring would get an equally authoritative blessing.

Youngblood made the calls, and he liked what he heard.

“I had heard from friends that he was my kind of a guy,” Youngblood said.

Meyer met with Youngblood shortly after he was hired. He explained to Youngblood that he wanted to make former Gators more involved in the program. Youngblood, who said he never received such an invitation from Steve Spurrier or Ron Zook, was one of the first former players to address the team.

“Each [former coach] has his own style and his own way of doing things,” Youngblood said. “That wasn’t part of the program.”

Meyer has changed that as part of a larger mission to alter the culture of the program, Youngblood said.

“There’s something different that’s unique, I’ve noticed, that I think we’ve lost in transition over the years,” Youngblood said. “There’s a genuineness about Urban and a passion that as a player you can sense whether it’s real or contrived.”

Meyer’s passion, Youngblood believes, is real.