Meyer played as a defensive back at the University of Cincinnati before earning his bachelor's degree in psychology in 1986. He later went on to earn his master's degree in sports administration at Ohio State University in 1988.

Meyer's first coaching position was a two-year stint as a graduate assistant at Ohio State. He then spent the next 13 years as an assistant�two at Illinois State, six at Colorado State, and finally five at Notre Dame. In 2001, Meyer took his first head coaching job at Bowling Green; in his first season there, he engineered the greatest turnaround in the NCAA, earning Mid-American Conference Coach of the Year honors in the process.

After two seasons at Bowling Green, he took the job at Utah in 2003. In his first season 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. Meyer's success can be attributed to his unique offensive system that is reminiscent of Steve Spurrier's offense when he coached the Florida Gators. The system can best be described as an offshoot of Bill Walsh's famed West Coast Offense, which relied on short, efficient pass routes and receivers making plays after the reception. Meyer's base offense spreads three receivers and puts the quarterback in the shotgun. Then, he introduces motion in the backfield and turns it into an option attack, adding elements of the traditional run-oriented option offense to the old Spurrier "Fun n' Gun" passing game.

In 2004, Meyer led the Utes to a Bowl Championship Series bid, something that had not been done by a "mid-major" program since the BCS' creation in 1998. In the wake of this accomplishment, both the University of Florida and the University of Notre Dame vied for his services. Despite more ties to the Notre Dame program, Meyer chose to become Florida's head coach for the 2005 season signing a 7-year contract worth $14 million. 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 2005, his first season at Florida, Meyer's Gators team went 9-3 (5-3 in the Southeastern Conference) and came a game short of the SEC Championship Game, but the team did defeat its three biggest rivals (Florida State, Tennessee, and Georgia) in a single season (for only the fourth time in school history) and beat a bowl opponent (Iowa in the Outback Bowl). Meyer didn't receive nearly as much criticism as former Florida head coach Ron Zook for failing to make it to the SEC title game, mostly due to an undefeated home record and wins over their biggest rivals. The Gators had a chance to face LSU in the SEC championship game, but a loss at the hands of legendary Florida coach Steve Spurrier�now with the South Carolina Gamecocks�dashed any hopes of Florida's first trip to the title game since 2000. While the jury is still out on Meyer at Florida, he remains highly regarded at UF.