Saturday’s Orange and Blue Debut at The Swamp could be dubbed “The Six Degrees of Separation” because it has become obvious that the Florida Gators have achieved a wide measure of separation from the state’s other college football programs. It was just a spring football game --- really just a glorified scrimmage, more for entertainment value than anything else --- but when you throw in the waves of talent Urban Meyer kept pouring onto the field, a national television audience on ESPN plus the entire Game Day crew and some 61,000 fans that made their way to Gainesville, it became abundantly clear that it’s no longer the Big Three in the state. It’s the Big One and the Gators are the Big One.
This is what happens when the right coach is at the right place at just the right time. This is what Urban Meyer sensed was possible at the University of Florida on that day back in the 1990s when he detoured off I-75 to spend about 30 minutes sitting in an empty Ben Hill Griffin Stadium visualizing a day when he might lead the Gators out of that tunnel. He was a Notre Dame assistant back then but he felt that Florida had everything necessary to be the single dominant program in all of college football. He’s the Florida coach now and he’s going to be the Florida coach for a long time. He’s been here three years and he has 31 wins under his belt, the best start in Florida football history (Steve Spurrier was 29-8).
It took Spurrier six years to get a national championship (1996). Meyer did it in two years. Nobody will be surprised if he has the Gators playing for their second national championship in four years this fall and the way he’s recruiting, Florida figures to be in the hunt for years and years to come.
There is a talent gap between the Gators and the other schools in the state. While Miami and Florida State announced their best recruiting classes in years back in February, the Gators cruised in with a class that’s even better. You have to say Florida’s class was better because the Gators simply filled in gaps left by departing players while Florida State and Miami are trying to make their way back among college football’s living. The Seminoles have been flirting with cadaver status for years now and they’ve put together two straight six-loss seasons in the Almost Competitive Conference. Miami? Weren’t the Hurricanes supposed to meet up with the Seminoles every single year in the ACC championship game once they bolted the Big Least?
Hasn’t happened. Isn’t going to happen this year and probably won’t for a few more years. They are re-building, not exactly from scratch but certainly from the foundation up.
Florida, meanwhile, is in perpetual reload. The Gators are stockpiling.
There is no need to reload at quarterback where the roster is set with Tim Tebow, the Heisman Trophy winner and backups Cameron Newton and Johnny Brantley, who would probably start at any other program in the state. Saturday, Tebow threw for 200 yards and a couple of touchdown passes. He did that with a 102-degree fever.
He shouldn’t have played.
“I was trying to keep stuff down,” said Tebow, who looked a little green around the gills after the game. “That’s about the nicest way I can say it.”
Meyer wasn’t surprised that Tebow played.
“That’s Tim,” said Meyer, who called Tebow one of the “best players of our era.”
Last year, Tebow set a passel of records while becoming the first quarterback in NCAA history to run for 20 touchdowns and pass for more than 20 in the same season. He spent the spring working to get better and Meyer said the improvement is noticeable, particularly in the area of handing in the pocket. Meyer doesn’t want Tebow to ever lose the ability to put pressure on a defense by taking off and running like he did last November when he shucked an FSU pass rusher and then blew by Geno Hayes on his way to a highlight reel touchdown in the Gators 45-12 win over the Seminoles.
He does, however, want Tebow to learn to be more patient in the pocket. The Gators have speed, speed and more speed on the outside now and those extra seconds of patience in the pocket can allow a player like Chris Rainey --- timed at 4.24 seconds in a pre-game 40-yard dash race --- to find that extra gear and separate from a defender. Rainey rushed for 75 yards on 11 carries but it was the 65-yard touchdown pass from Tebow that blew everybody’s mind. Rainey wasn’t the first option, but he was the most open option and Tebow found him down the West sideline at the 20. Rainey gathered the ball in, zigged Ahmad Black’s lumbar out of place, then zagged his kneecaps into next week. Black crossed his legs and wound up on the seat of his pants. The last 20 yards were the easiest 20 of Rainey’s Florida career.
What made that play significant was that Tebow probably wouldn’t have looked for a second or third option last year. He probably would have broken out of the pocket and headed for open space. Now he’s aware of the pocket and showing the patience to hang in there.
“Two years ago that was a big negative,” said Meyer. “Last year was a lot better. He has to work at that all summer just to stay in that launch point area and he has improved.”
That Florida is reloading was also apparent in the running game. Everybody keeps saying the Gators have to have an every-down tailback to be successful in the running game. The Orange and Blue Debut begged to ask the question why? Why do you need one tailback when you have as many fast, capable ball carriers as the Gators can throw at you?
The Gators played four tailbacks in the game and they accounted for 215 yards on 34 carries. Now get this. It was the FOURTH string tailback that led the way with 111 yards on 14 carries for one touchdown. The fourth string guy is Emmanuel Moody, who was the Pac-10 Freshman of the Year at Southern Cal in 2006. He broke a 34 yarder that sucked the oxygen out of the 61,000 fans in the stadium. Rainey, Mon Williams and Kestahn Moore are ahead of Moody on the depth chart and we can’t forget Percy Harvin, who sat out this game because he had surgery on his heel Monday.
Harvin will be back in August and because he had the surgery, he will be FASTER in the fall and healthy for the first time since he’s been at Florida. He will line up in the slot once again and there will be times he will be on the field with Rainey at tailback and Brandon James in the other slot with Deonte Thompson (10.3 100 meters in high school), Louis Murphy (legit 4.29 electronically timed 40) and freshman Jeff Demps (10.17 100 meters last weekend at the Florida relays).
When Tebow thinks about that kind of speed, he knows it’s pick your poison if you are defensive coordinator. Who do you double?
“I don’t think you can double up too many players,” said Tebow. “It’s too spread out and too many players can make plays.”
Is it enough to make a quarterback feel sorry for the defenders?
“I don’t feel sorry for them at all,” Tebow said.
It’s not like the Gators have to beat you with speed alone. Saturday, Cornelius Ingram and Carl Moore didn’t even play and both of them are outstanding pass catchers. Aaron Hernandez, who Meyer says “is going to be a force for us,” gives the Gators a raging bull of a tight end that is like a heat-seeking missile once he catches the ball. He can’t wait to find a safety to run over.
Jim Tartt, who might be the best offensive guard in the SEC in 2008, didn’t play but he wasn’t missed, nor was Mo Hurt, who missed the entire spring. The Gators simply plugged in Carl Johnson and James Wilson into his guard slot. As a high schooler in 2005, Johnson was one of the two best offensive linemen in the country. A year later, Wilson was considered the best offensive lineman in the country. They’re second teamers at Florida because there are big, strong, talented linemen like Michael and Maurkice Pouncey --- “Thank God we have them on our team and not somewhere else,” Meyer said --- Jim Trautwein and Jason Watkins.
Everybody knows the Gators can score points. The problem last year was stopping people but huge strides were made this spring and a couple of stars emerged. Carlos Dunlap, the 6-8, 280-pound sophomore that Meyer says is still trying to figure out how to play football, was an unstoppable pass rusher all spring. Satuday he beat every double team thrown at him and he and still got four sacks.
“As far as pass rush he could be a force in the Southeastern Conference and if you’re a force in the SEC that means you’re one of the better players America,” said Meyer. “Coach Addazio (offensive line coach) who I’ve known for a long time made the comment that he’s as fine a pass rusher as he’s gone against and we’ve gone against some good ones.”
Brandon Spikes didn’t play a lot Saturday but that was because Meyer wanted to see his younger, less experienced linebackers play. Meyer found an emerging stud in Lorenzo Edwards, who dropped 30 pounds and reversed his attitude in the offseason. He’s become a 6-2, 235-pound tackling machine who also knows what to do in pass coverage. When Tebow’s second quarter pass to Hernandez hit hands and then pads, Edwards was there to gobble it up. With Major Wright providing the convoy, it was a 50-yard sprint to the end zone.
The secondary showed tremendous improvement both at the corners and at safeties. The kicking game is in good shape with freshman Caleb Sturgis, who was nervous as you might expect a 17-year-old to be in front of 61,000 fans, and Chas Henry’s only punt was a 64-yard bomb that went 59 yards on the fly from the line of scrimmage.
It was just a spring game and while spring games don’t necessarily prove anything, this one made a real statement about where Urban Meyer has the University of Florida football program. To the more than 100 high school recruits at the game it was a most impressive atmosphere and around the country you have to know that some kids who have scholarship offers from Florida saw the game on television and said, “That’s the place for me!” Which is exactly what Meyer wanted.
The Gators are at the top of this state’s college football heap and the distance is so great between Florida and whoever is next best that when Meyer speaks to recruits, the only thing the other programs in the state hear are the echoes.
