The Back Alley Archives

Bad news for opponents: Percy Harvin is coming on strong. The sophomore wide receiver became the first player in school history to have 100 rushing and receiving yards in the same game last week when Florida defeated Vanderbilt, 49-22, to stay alive in the SEC East race.

Harvin finished with 113 rushing yards and two touchdowns and he caught nine passes for 110 yards. Rated as the No. 1 player by Rivals.com in the 2006 class, Harvin leads the team with 45 receptions for 714 yards and three scores and he's third rushing with 442 yards and four touchdowns on 54 attempts.

"Everybody keying on him, that's good," said sophomore wide receiver Jarred Fayson, who caught an 11-yard touchdown pass against Vanderbilt. "He's still a great player. He's still going to do what he has to do. That makes it harder to defend us."

Harvin is a constant threat. Fayson has produced the last two weeks. Fifth-year senior Andre Caldwell had nine catches for 103 yards and two touchdowns against the Commodores. Louis Murphy is having a strong junior season. Cornelius Ingram, who was limited last week with an ankle injury, leads the team with five receiving touchdowns.

Delivering the ball is sophomore quarterback Tim Tebow, a Heisman Trophy hopeful, who has completed almost 68 percent of his passes for 2,228 yards with 21 touchdowns and four interceptions. He also leads the team with 598 rushing yards and 14 scores on 144 carries.

Tebow said he and Harvin did not know each other in high school and first met when they visited Florida for its game against Tennessee in their senior years. Harvin was a star at Virginia Beach (Va.) Landstown. However, he was involved in a few fights or arguments. Tebow was a stud quarterback at Ponte Vedra Nease, the top-rated dual-threat quarterback in the class by Rivals.com.

"We met here for the Tennessee game our senior year and talked and then at the end of the season I committed and then he committed," Tebow said. "That's about the only time we talked. We talked at the Tennessee game and then after I committed and then a few days later he committed and then we started to get a few more guys and we were working on that together.

"I never saw Percy play until I played with him at the (U.S. Army) All-American Game and he was by far the best player out there so it was great having him on my team."

Tebow committed to Florida on Dec. 13. Harvin picked the Gators six days later. Since then, their relationship has grown and they are probably the best sophomore quarterback-wide receiver threat in the country. Harvin finished with 30 receiving and 19 rushing touchdowns in his final two high school seasons.

He is the only athlete to earn five gold medals in the Virginia state track and field championships. There were a few disturbances on the field in his high school career but Tebow and coach Urban Meyer said Harvin, who led the team with 97 rushing yards on 10 carries in the loss to Georgia, has matured and found a way to handle himself better.

"You don't know until you meet them and get to know them but I can see how his competitiveness, people could look at him and say he has a temper," Tebow said. "Percy is a great kid, a super nice kid. He wouldn't hurt anybody. People are going to say stuff but he's a super competitive kid. He's been a great kid since I've known him. He has great character and he's very competitive.

"He's also worked extremely hard on the field, off the field with everything he's had to deal with just becoming more developed, a well-rounded person growing in everything he's done. He's developed everything on the field, off the field, as a receiver, as a playmaker. He's getting better and he shows that out there."

Said Meyer: "What happens is these high-profile people because of dot-com or because of everything else, these young athletes get things handed to them. They're also a target. The athlete is the one that gets targeted, he's the guy that gets abused by the fans, he's the one that takes it and he'd be the first to tell you he didn't know how to handle those situations.

"Not that he was a bad guy. He knows how to handle situations right now. His last month at the University of Florida as far as practice, you see him saying things to the defense, you see his work ethic, you see the camaraderie with his teammates. He's had his best month at Florida."

Florida closes out its SEC regular-season schedule at South Carolina on Saturday. Kickoff is scheduled for 7:45 p.m. The Gators are still in the conference race. They need Tennessee and Georgia to each lose one conference game. If that happens, Florida would win the SEC East and return to Atlanta for the second straight season. Tennessee hosts Arkansas, which defeated South Carolina 48-36 last week. Georgia hosts Auburn.

Percy never ceases to amaze me with some of the things he is able to do. I still shake my head when he gets going full speed, stops on a dime, changes direction, and is back at full speed. That is just sick.

Sometimes it looks like he has wheels and he is pushing off on defenders and using them to get speed...hard to explain but it's spectacular.

he's the most outstanding player in college football, IMHO. he's the best I'll see wear the Gator uniform--that's my suspicion.

Obviously his first and second steps are tremendously quick. He can get to full speed fast. But what I really see in him that I've not seen in many others as quick is his body seems to be leaning forward as he runs. Almost like a sprinter hitting the tape at the end of a race. That scares me immensely. I always feel as if he's gonna take a shot by a bigger guy but he always seems to elude the big hit

He took a big hit this past weekend on a run between the hash marks and he got right up. He seems to have that inner strength. The koreans call it the "chi" - the ability to lift a bigger opponent with only two fingers. The "chi" utilizes inner strength. Harvins got it

^^he's built pretty well for a sophomore (bring forth your mancrush jokes). you can tell he takes the s&c program seriously. methinks Bubba helped learn him that one.

the other thing is his vision, rad. that's how he manages to slide off direct hits just in the nick of time.

^^^yeah, he definitely knows when to pause, when to go, when to scoot...he just has "it". Like good comedic timing, only on the playing field. It's simply amazing.

Another thing you gotta love about Percy is his attitude, in spite of all the rumors about him coming in. Kid never takes credit for what he does. When he was named MVP of the SEC championship game, he gave credit to Dallas Baker. When he was asked this past week about his performance against Vandy, he said that all the credit went to the offensive line and that anyone could have had that performance playing behind a line that played as well as his did.