What we have in this BCS High Noon at Night, folks, are the two best coaches in college football. They are Urban Meyer and Bob Stoops, and I give an ever-so-slight edge to the Florida man over the Oklahoma gent strictly on the basis of who's hottest at this precise moment.

That's a little like trying to compare the bottom of a working skillet to the middle of a coal fire. Both these guys are smoking. I beg your permission to devote today's little piece mostly to Meyer only on the basis that as much has already been written about Stoops as, say, Bud Wilkinson and Barry Switzer.

Please note this does not postulate Stoops as another Wilkinson or Switzer. Stoops is, as the famous author Dan Jenkins would say, his own self and need not suffer any comparisons with any predecessors, no matter how golden. It is possible, though hardly likely given the increasing pressure on coaches at every level, Stoops could surpass them both. However, Meyer gets my vote this minute because he is going for his second BCS trophy in three years. And he is doing that because he is the best recruiter going.

QUICK TRIGGER

Meyer comes into Dolphin Stadium with a flat dozen players who run 40 yards in fewer than 4.4 seconds. And speed has been the name of the game ever since Jimmy Johnson pretty much changed the whole thing at the University of Miami in the late 1980s.

As for X's and O's, Meyer and Stoops probably are dead even, notwithstanding the deadliness of Meyer's so-called Spread offense. For that matter, I confess here and now that trying to pick the best coach in the game is not only presumptuous but sort of stupid, because for all we know, the best may be some totally unknown gink at Northwesteastsouth Montana Normal School Branch -- who hasn't gotten a chance at the Paramount.

So, we come down to recruiting, where Meyer is not only persuasive but has a lot more scenery and temperature to sell than Stoops. Through sportscasters' constant abuse of the words ''incredible'' and ''unbelievable,'' I have come to hate both. Any receiver who catches a ball with one foot an inch off the ground has made an ''incredible'' play. Any runner who scores through a hole less than a dozen yards wide has just done something ''unbelievable.'' Those two words have been devalued more than the field goal in basketball. But one is forced to trot out both in addressing Meyer's recruiting touch.

He knows what he wants -- a player who can run the fastest and act the straightest on and off the field. When he looks a prospect's parents in the eye and promises he will take care of their son, they believe him. And he carries through.

BLACK WEDNESDAY

In Urban's Way, Buddy Martin's splendid authorized biography and, paradoxically, objective book on Meyer, he tells of the coach's so-called Black Wednesday. It happened in 2001 when he went to Bowling Green from his assistantship at Notre Dame. Some Bowling Green players were treating school as though it was a branch of Club Med, and Meyer had them locked in a field house and run until they were forced to regurgitate -- endlessly -- into trash cans strategically placed. Moreover, they had to hit the cans directly. ''Don't vomit on my turf!'' Meyer bellowed time after time.

We all know coaches who go to their graves thinking that's one of the ways to instill discipline and desire. It's more like instilling a lasting hatred of whatever ''system'' happens to be using the player. It didn't take Meyer long to realize that.

''I was a 36-year-old coach out of control,'' he would say, and he never lapsed into that syndrome again. The Junction Boys experiment worked for Bear Bryant -- the famous little incident in which he took a full squad to a desert post named Junction, and came back with only about half of them, when he first assumed command at Texas A&M. Meyer wasn't going to trust it ever again because he believed it was intrinsically wrong.

PARENTAL GUIDANCE

That's a huge part of Meyer's approach. Once a player comes under his wing, Meyer assumes the role of parent. Every Gators assistant is charged with daily personal contact with his position players. Meyer has waited in classrooms to check if players are late or absent. If they are tardy, Meyer tells them, ''Don't ever do that again!'' If they cut class, they will hear about it for a long time.

Steve Spurrier, in his wonderful run at UF, let chalk do his talking. His offense was everything, and consequently, he found much less time for eye-to-eye contact with players off the field. Meyer remains a huge admirer of Spurrier, from the way his teams ran on the field to the way they lined up and ran all over it. Meyer simply takes a different approach. Right now it's the hottest approach going.

Know how they say every coach will get fired if he coaches long enough? I believe it 99.9 percent of the time. Meyer is the .1 percent.

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