used Harris. Utah After two seasons at Bowling Green, he took the job at Utah in 2003. In his first year there, Meyer was named the Mountain West Conference's Coach of the Year with a 10–2 record, the best ever for a coach's first season at Utah. He also earned honors as The Sporting News National Coach of the Year, the first Utes coach to do so. They also won the program's first outright conference championship since the 1957 team won the Skyline Conference title. Meyer's success can be attributed to his unique offensive system, which is an offshoot of Bill Walsh's West Coast Offense, relying on short pass routes. Meyer's base offense spreads three receivers and puts the quarterback in shotgun formation. Then, he introduces motion in the backfield and turns it into an option attack, adding elements of the traditional run-oriented option offense. In 2004, Meyer led the undefeated Utes to a Bowl Championship Series bid, something that had not been done by a team from a non-automatically qualifying BCS conference since the formation of the BCS in 1998. He remained at Utah long enough to coach the team to a Fiesta Bowl win over Pittsburgh, capping off the Utes' first perfect season (12–0) since 1930. In 2003, Utes quarterback Alex Smith threw for 2,247 yards and 15 touchdowns and ran for 452 yards with five touchdowns. In 2004, he threw for 2,952 yards with 32 touchdowns and ran for 631 yards and 10 touchdowns. His production in Meyer's offensive scheme was a large reason why Smith was considered a first-round pick entering the 2005 NFL Draft. Florida In the wake of his accomplishments at Utah, both the University of Florida and the University of Notre Dame vied for his services. Meyer chose to become Florida's head coach for the 2005 season, signing a seven-year contract worth $14 million. He later signed a six-year contract extension with the Gators on June 7, 2007; the extended contract paid an average of $3.25 million per year. On August 3, 2009, Meyer received another contract extension that made him the SEC's highest-paid coach during the 2009 season; his 2009 extension was worth $24 million over six years. At the time of the latest contract extension, Meyer was the third highest-paid college football coach, behind only Pete Carroll and Charlie Weis. Meyer has been criticized by some commentators because 31 of his