Today, is the head coach of the New England Patriots, looking to rebuild the franchise to the heights it reached when he was a player there. Of course, he likely wouldn’t be where he is as a coach if he hadn’t begun coaching with the .

While at Ohio State, Mike Vrabel coached for and . Along the way, he quickly made an impression on Meyer when he injured his head by headbutting players in helmets. That’s something that Meyer remembers to this day and recalled on The Triple Option.

“One quick Mike Vrabel story, is the intensity,” Urban Meyer said. “He’s still damn near a player at this point. Big sucker. So, we’re playing the Wolverines, and you know where I’m going with this, Mike. So, we’re playing the Wolverines in 2012. It’s probably five degrees outside. To get the teams out of their damn mind, and we get out and we’re playing our ass off.”

Ultimately, Vrabel in his second year as a coach at Ohio State, had essentially cut his face open. It needed stitches and bandages, setting an interesting tone for the Buckeyes as they’d go on to beat Michigan 26-21.

“I look over at Mike, he’s got a hat on. Not a hoodie. Like a little stocking cap. His face is like bruised up and he’s got a little mark on his face, right there. I don’t have time. We’re going, we’re coaching. I looked, I said, ‘What the sh*t. What the hell happened here?’ Then, later on, I found out that the players were all headbutting each other before the game and someone got right in the middle of it and his name was Mike Vrabel.”

At that point, Vrabel cut in to break down exactly what happened to him. That included needing six stitches and getting wrapped in gauze before going out to coach The Game.

“It was right here [pointing to the bridge of his nose]. It split me up. I had six stitches and they wrapped like gauze around my head and put a beanie on it. I was like out of it. It was like yellow and dripping in my eyes and stuff.”

Vrabel ended his playing career following the 2010 NFL season. By 2011, he was coaching at Ohio State. Initially, that was as a linebacker’s coach. However, to make Meyer’s staff, he needed to interview in 2012. That came immediately after injuring himself.

“So, Urban’s like, ‘I’m going to interview you in the morning.’ And I tell this story to every person I interview to kind of like drop the shield a little bit. I say, ‘However you do in this interview, it will never be as bad as my first interview.’ I had never interviewed. I had coached for a year and basically what I did is I coached the linebackers but really I made sure that they went to class and they showed up at practice on time because Luke [Fickell] coached the linebackers and was the head coach. So, I was kind of figuring my way out.”

Ultimately, Mike Vrabel admitted that the interview went poorly for him with the Buckeyes. Luckily, he had a second shot that went a bit better and the rest is history. He was on his way as a coach.

“First interview, Urban in front of the whole staff that he had just hired. I get up there, I draw this little circle. This little T, talking about a three-technique, and I just pissed down my leg. I had no idea. And he’s like, ‘That is the worst thing I have ever seen.’ He goes, ‘I want you to go home, figure this out, and come back at 6:00 in the morning.’ I go home, and I said, ‘Jenn, I don’t know if I’m gonna be coaching much longer.’ I said that was the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life. I went back to the office, stayed there all night, had a teaching progression, figured out what I wanted to do and how I wanted to explain it, and then said let’s try this again at 6:00 in the morning and did a little better.”

Now, as a head coach himself, Mike Vrabel has the chance to interview people and he’ll use that story to make everyone more comfortable. After all, it can’t go worse than it did for him. For his part, Urban Meyer admitted it was the effort to have a better interview that landed him the job. After all, after his phenomenal playing career, it’s not something he needed. It was something he wanted.

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