Rain Man Speaketh

[TheTodd]

Chris Rainey had all his buddies on the Florida offense up and cheering Friday afternoon. It was typical Rainey. A hip goes this way, the feet go the other, some defensive player is left with two empty arms flogging the air and suddenly Rainey has a lot of green grass ahead of him. Usually, that spells touchdown. Not Friday. He got caught from behind.

“Someone caught me … Major Wright,” he said, his grin growing wider as he spoke. “My feet were heavy because of the pouring down rain. I felt slow out there.”

He’s had a close encounter with Major Wright before. It was last August during two-a-days. Rainey had the ball, hips went one way, feet never got planted. What got planted was Rainey.

Major Wright popped him. Not exactly the hit heard ‘round the world, but a signature hit from a guy that had been waiting his chance to hit Rainey for the last three years. Rainey was Major Wright’s worst nightmare in high school. Rainey was the unstoppable runner that St. Thomas Aquinas could never wrestle to the ground. Rainey and the Lakeland Dreadnaughts won three straight high school championship games over Wright and St. Thomas Aquinas.

At St. Thomas, Wright never put the hammer on Rainey. A few days into their Florida careers, Wright got a clean shot, leveled Rainey and Rainey got up woozy while Wright’s defensive teammates danced and high-fived each other.

“He caught me on that one,” said Rainey, laughing harder with each word. “That ain’t never gonna happen no more though!”

Rainey gets hit hard about as often as he gets caught from behind, which is to say hardly ever. Highlight reel runs and the happy go lucky personality are critical components of the Rainey equation. The smile never leaves his face. The breakaway sprints to the goal line happen with regularity.

Getting hit hard this August?

“No way … no … uh uh,” said Rainey.

Caught from behind other than what happened Friday? He had to think about that one.

“Probably a couple of times … don’t remember that,” he said.

Rainey has the natural instincts of a game-breaker. He hits the hole quickly, has the ability to make someone miss --- or now that he’s added 20 pounds of muscle the ability to break a tackle --- and then once he’s past the line of scrimmage there is an instinctive race to open space. Give him a big enough seam to run through and there’s every good chance he will go the distance.

He has been laser timed in the 40-yard dash in 4.24 seconds. He runs 100 meters fast enough that the Florida track team ran him head-to-head with Florida State’s Olympian and multi-time/event NCAA champ Walter Dix in the first leg of the 4X100 relay at the NCAA championships. Rainey beat Dix head up in that first leg, helping the Gators to take second place ahead of the defending NCAA champ Seminoles in that event.

He is pure speed when he breaks into open space on the football field, but when he bursts through a hole and there is a linebacker waiting to plant him, Rainey always has a move and it’s usually successful.

“Every time they give me the ball I make one person miss,” said Rainey. “The offensive line loves me so I just keep doing what I’m doing and they’ll keep being on my side and give me the ball.”

As a true freshman Rainey arrived at UF weighing all of 160 pounds. For all the speed and all the high school records he set for a Lakeland team that won 45 straight games and a pair of mythical national championships, Rainey suffered from chronically sore shoulders that had a tendency to pop out.

That didn’t stop him from being a prime recruit for the Gators but it did hinder him once he got to UF where the players are bigger, stronger and faster and the hits are more often and much harder. The shoulder popped out of place way too easily.

“He would tell stories about his shoulders that he would go like this [shoulder lunges forward] and it would go out,” said Florida coach Urban Meyer. “He’s such a tough kid … even at Lakeland High School … wait four or five minutes, go like this [pop shoulder back in place] and go back in and run the ball.”

Four games into the 2007 season, Rainey was a special teams player but the shoulder problems got worse. He underwent season-ending shoulder surgery, got a medical redshirt, and once rehabbed, started lifting weights in earnest for the first time in his life. Without the shoulder pain or fear that the shoulder would go pop, he could get serious in the weight room.

The results? Back in the spring, playing at 175, Rainey was a consistent offensive star and the standout in the Orange and Blue game. More weight lifting in the summer has resulted in a 22-pound net gain since he first came to Florida. He’s not the skinny 160-ounder anymore but a 182-pound tailback capable of running through a tackle without any fear.

“Big difference because after every hit I can get up and go back and do another play,” said Rainey.

The upper body muscle holds a tightened shoulder in place and he says that’s worth noting “because a year ago when I got hit it would be painful. I got hit [since August practice began] a couple of times and it felt normal. I called Coach Mick (Marotti; strength and conditioning coach) and told him I appreciate it because my shoulder is healthy again.”

Now that he’s healthy, Rainey is factoring heavily in Florida’s offensive plans for the 2008 season. He is a tailback that can catch the ball so unlike Percy Harvin, who is a wide receiver first, tailback second, Rainey is a tailback first who will dabble in the slot as a receiver.

It’s all part of a scheme to utilize Florida’s enormous bank of talent at the running back position. The Gators might not have a go-to back but they have five backs with so much talent that it might be better running tailback by committee and let the hot hand have the ball.

When Rainey sees all the talented tailbacks he thinks competition and that motivates him to excel. Everybody already knows about how he runs faster against competition in match races. Competition at tailback seems to have the same effect.

Always a team first guy, Rainey sees his fellow tailbacks as a diverse group that can run over defenders or run past them.

“That’s too much speed out there,” he said. “I have no clue … if I was the head coach I would have no clue who to give the ball to.”

Rainey offered up comments about his fellow tailbacks:

EMMANUEL MOODY: “He’s pretty good but he’s gotta keep the ball tight and high because he’s always running like this [arm swinging]. He’s pretty good though.”

KESTAHN MOORE: “Kestahn the work horse. That’s what I call him.”

MON WILLIAMS: “Powerful … he’s a powerful back.”

JEFF DEMPS: “Super fast. That boy’s fast.”

Demps, who set the world record for 18-year-olds with a 10.01 100 meters at the Olympic Trials back in July, has run some well publicized spur of the moment match races behind a dorm. Accounts vary, but Rainey’s version is that he won two out of three.

Asked if he’s had a rematch, Rainey said, “Not yet, but it will be soon, though.”

Rainey confirmed that he and Harvin had a scuffle at practice last week. It happened while both of them were injured and working out in The Pit. Rainey said there was just something that happened, spur of the moment, and rolled his back in his head at the thought that it was serious.

“It was like a football thing,” he said. “When two players fight they go back and mind their business and go back to being friends again. Both of us were mad because both of us were hurt and in the pit. Nobody wants to be in the pit because you gotta do a lot of work. We just got into it because we both were mad. We look out there on the field and we both weren’t playing and we just got frustrated.”

Rainey said it was nothing more than the typical kind of testosterone-fueled scuffle that happens nearly every day on the practice field. Hard feelings? Rainey shrugged that off and added a distinct no.

Harvin has been brought back slowly from an injured heel that required complicated surgery in the spring. Rainey, who said he and Harvin are friends, said he he’s eager to see Harvin back on the field soon.

“Every day I ask him if he’s all right and when you coming back? We talk every day about that. He’ll be back soon, though.”

Healthy again after being slowed a few days (see scuffle with Harvin) with an aggravated groin muscle, Rainey is happy to be playing football and practicing every day. He loves what he sees of the Florida offense but what really excites him is the other side of the ball.

“The defense is looking pretty good out there,” he said. “I can’t wait to see them play this year.”