Urban Meyer: Claim he didn't know who Aaron Donald was is 'so silly'

Plenty went wrong for Urban Meyer during his less-than-one full season as head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars — just ask running back Travis Etienne about it — before the franchise gave him the figurative boot this past December roughly one week before Christmas. 

One of the more bizarre stories to come out since Meyer's ouster was a claim that he allegedly didn't know much about future Hall of Famer and three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year Aaron Donald as Meyer and his staff prepared to face the Los Angeles Rams on Dec. 5. (The Rams crushed the Jaguars 37-7.) 

During a recent appearance on "The Tim May Podcast," Meyer defended himself and hit back at that report. 

"When I heard, someone told me that, I’ve heard silly things before in my life. It’s almost — you shouldn’t even address something like that, it’s so silly," Meyer explained, according to Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk. "I don’t know who Aaron Donald is? I shake my head, what are you talking about?" 

Meyer generated headlines earlier in the fall when some unfortunate videos featuring the married coach went viral, but he said he was fired mostly because the Jaguars began the season at 2-11 and not due to any off-the-field controversies. 

"I believe we got fired because we didn’t win enough games," Meyer added. "We had good enough players to win games. We didn’t do a good job. I’ve always been a person, you are what your record is. We were 2-11, that’s terrible. Now, they lost 15 games straight before that. So it was a build. And I believe we would have turned it." 

It also probably didn't help Meyer's cause that rookie quarterback and first overall draft pick Trevor Lawrence was, statistically speaking, one of the league's worst signal-callers who ended his debut season with only 12 passing touchdowns and 17 interceptions. Jacksonville is now hoping new head coach Doug Pederson can get the best out of Lawrence later this year.