As the news filtered out the past couple of days - and everybody, all together now: Is Urban Meyer really, really sure of his decision this time? - it sent a great big "Huh?" through the college football landscape.

Urban Meyer said he was stepping down. Then he didn’t, calling it a leave of absence, one without a definite return date. Yet the one thing that kept resonating, especially when it looked like the Florida coach would walk away from the Gators, was this: It’s shocking this doesn’t happen more often.

Coaching is a high-stress, little down-time, very public profession. Coaches are paid well - many times exceedingly well - but it comes at the cost of family, friends and a life outside of a football facility.

Fans scour every move, track every plane flight. As the media continues to grow with more opinions than players and coaches, the cycle of news becomes more constant.

Burnout shouldn’t be a surprise or a phenomenon. When it comes to coaching, it’s an eventuality. In reality - and coaches might do this at a worse rate than others - neglecting your health isn’t an option. It’s a near-certainty.

The hours put in, the amount of stress placed on the heart and the mind, take a toll. There’s a reason Meyer said Sunday he felt like he’s had a “30-year coaching career in nine years.” It’s because it is the same everywhere.

Coaches jet - or drive - from state to state, school to school looking for who is next in recruiting, let alone worrying about the players who used to be those recruits and ended up signing at Florida or Michigan or USC. And this is without mention of family or making sure you’re healthy.

College football, purists be damned and foolish, is huge business. The 40-hour work week most Americans are accustomed to often feel like some Saturdays for coaches and the people who cover them, let alone an entire week.

Weekends off? Ha. Holidays? They are just as often spent watching film or game-planning as they are cutting through turkey or opening presents.

“Everybody thinks it’s a glamorous life as a coach,” Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez said earlier this year. “We’re fortunate to be in the position. I get paid great money. Who would have thought we’d be able to coach at this kind of thing when you first get into it.

But, you know. I go home, see the wife and kids, and I go to the office. Only time I leave is to go to the away game or go recruiting.”

And that’s more work.

There’s a reason most coaches scoff when they ask if they’ll still be on the sidelines at age 83 like Joe Paterno. Even if they can hold their jobs that long - and in most cases, that isn’t happening - the stress will likely do them in before they reach 70, let alone 80.

Heck, if Paterno endured the constant scrutiny and attention associated with college football over the past decade throughout his entire career, who knows if he’d still be around.

“I don’t’ know if any coach would stand up here and say we plan on doing it as long as he did,” Rodriguez said in October. “He and Bobby Bowden, it’s amazing. I don’t think it ever will be duplicated. You’re never supposed to say never, but the number of years at the same institution, as long as he’s done it, is quite remarkable.”

About the only way it could happen is if everything was re-evaluated. Except with the way coaches act - Type A personalities predestined to compete in everything from reading to recruiting, from checkers to college football - it isn’t going to happen easily.

When Meyer discussed his chest pains Sunday, he brought up Skip Prosser, the former Wake Forest basketball coach who died of a heart attack on July 26, 2007, at age 56. The July recruiting period - easily the most grinding month of the college basketball calendar for basketball coaches - was wrapping up.

Prosser’s death sent waves through the sport. Not that anything changed.

Ignoring health is nothing new. Houston basketball coach Tom Penders collapsed during a game against UAB on Jan. 21, 2006. He didn’t even sit the entire game, returning in the second half. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski collapsed during a timeout in 2005 and kept on coaching.

Former Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis had his health deteriorate after John Ryan took out his knees during the 2008 Michigan-Notre Dame game. He put off surgery for the rest of the season and Notre Dame, many times, looked worse for it.

Former Michigan coach Bo Schembechler had two heart attacks and two quadruple bypass surgeries before retiring after the 1989 season at age 60.

There are exceptions. Another former Notre Dame coach, Ara Parseghian, retired in 1974 at the age of 51, citing health concerns.

On Saturday, Meyer looked like he’d be the next great exception. Less than 24 hours later, he amended his thought.

He wouldn’t say if doctors told him to step away from coaching or give exact details on what, exactly, is going on other than he hasn’t had a heart attack and that he’s had chest pains for about four years.

“I just have to be smarter,” Meyer said about his eventual return. “I’m not very smart; that’s part of the problem.”

Meyer said his family is his first priority. That's smart. Hopefully he makes sure he's totally healthy before he comes back and doesn't push it. That would be the smartest move he could make. Other coaches could learn from that, too.

Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan sports for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com or follow along on Twitter @mikerothstein.