I knew God had a plan for it, but it was a little bit frustrating to be going through this again, especially on such a freak play. It was irritating to start the year hurt on a block, of all things.
Still, I tried to look past the injury and just focus on our next game: Miami. Both teams were fired up for this game, and during the pregame warm-up I used so much energy that I had to regroup and regather myself to get a second wind. Maybe it was because of this excitement or maybe it was just the mood I was in; Miami was the first time I ever wrote a Bible verse beneath my eyes. I was getting ready to put on eye black before the game and trying to decide whether to wear the black paint stuff or the black patches that are like stickers. I thought maybe I could use a Sharpie to write a Bible verse on the eye black if I used the patches—I figured that black paint would just make a total mess.
I wasn’t even sure if people would be able to see it, but I thought if they could, it might be a really simple way to share a great Bible verse with some folks in the television-viewing audience. And if somebody noticed and asked me about it, I’d have a chance to talk about things of real significance beyond football.
The first verse that came to mind was one of my favorites, Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” That was perfect to summarize my approach to football, and it seemed like a good verse to go with the first time out of the box. Paul’s point is that Christ gives us the ability to be content with a little or a lot.
I wrote it on the eye-black patches and wore the patches into the game. I don’t remember that it got a lot of attention, and I really hadn’t given any thought to whether I would do it again. As I recall, a few reporters asked me about it after the game. And so I continued to write Philippians 4:13 on the eye-black patches all through the rest of the season. Actually, I wrote PHIL under my right eye and 4:13 under my left—occasionally I’d have someone ask who Phil was and what that number had to do with him. And even that question gave me a chance to talk about things of eternal significance.
On the opening drive against Miami we made some good plays to move the ball down the field, and I eventually hit Aaron Hernandez in the corner of the end zone for a touchdown. But it was all uphill from there, a tough game. They made some big plays and kept it somewhat close, but we played pretty well and managed to stay ahead, largely due to Aaron Hernandez who had a great game.
Because it was early in the season, we were still getting used to who was doing what. In the off-season, we never fully know who our playmakers will be and who will emerge as focal points of the team. The year before, Louis Murphy had a good year, but he had been more of a Z receiver, while Bubba Caldwell, who was a senior, was the X receiver. The Z receiver is the one who lines up on the same side of the offensive line as the tight end (called the strong side of the line). The X receiver is the receiver who lines up on the other side of the offensive line—or on the weak side. The Y receiver is, in fact, the tight end himself. This year, with Bubba no longer on the team, Murph was going to slide into the X position, and the real question was: will Murph be able to handle the X position? He ended up being tremendous. We knew that Percy Harvin would continue to be great again this season, but we didn’t know who else would step up.
The next question was: who was going to be the primary running back? Jeff Demps, Emmanuel Moody or Chris Rainey? The Miami game also gave us an opportunity to see who was going to step up, especially when we had the game somewhat under control. Murph stepped up and made some big plays from the wide-out position and put the game out of reach in the end. He scored on a corner pattern, which came right after a fifty-yard touchdown that was called back for an illegal man downfield. The play was a good response by our offense to the penalty.
As for Murph, he’d been very good my sophomore year, but in that Miami game you could see he really was staking a claim to being the go-to guy in the 2008 season. His leadership and passion and, more than anything else, his competitive excellence would end up making a mark throughout that season. Miami was a big win for us and my only time to play against them, so I certainly didn’t want to miss this opportunity to come out on top. I wanted to make certain we did everything we needed to do to end up with a victory. I already had an 0–2 record against Auburn; I didn’t need any more winless records against rivals. The defense played well once again, holding them to only three points and 140 yards of total offense. Our 26–3 win was a total team effort—we scored early and finished up by scoring late.
The next week we played Tennessee in Knoxville. The year before we’d beaten them pretty badly in the Swamp, so we knew they were going to come in motivated to turn that around. At the same time, they were the ones who won the SEC East Division the previous year, not us. We drove down the field and scored on our first possession of the game on a pass to Aaron Hernandez. We led 20–0 at the half, and Tennessee’s only points against our defense came on a Jonathan Crompton one-yard run in the second half, as we eased to a 30–6 win. It’s always good to win an SEC game, but it’s particularly big when you can go to Neyland Stadium in Knoxville with their 110,000 fans and come away with a big win.
We had gotten through a tough early stretch and thankfully had a bit of a breather ahead, with Ole Miss coming into the Swamp.
Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
—J
AMES 1:2–4
We trailed in the overall series
with Ole Miss by one game and would even it with a win. But more important than any history, we’d move to 2–0 in the conference for 2008. We were starting to play pretty well on offense, and we were looking to match the defense’s continuing high level of play in this week’s game.
However, for some reason, we seemed to be in a funk the whole game. It’s hard to even explain. We started out fine—moved the ball fairly well, scored some points, and went up 17–7 at halftime. Not a great half for us in what we anticipated would be a game that we controlled much more, but we were still leading. Usually there’d be a point in the second quarter where the internal switches would flip to On and we’d automatically feel some additional drive, get the momentum, and score a touchdown, or the defense would stop them, and then we’d begin to go about dominating them. But in the Ole Miss game we never felt that click or anything similar. Several times I thought we’d start blowing them out, because we really were better than they were. It was easy playing against them. Maybe that was the problem.
Honestly, it’s hard to even explain some of the things that happened in that game.
In the second quarter, we ran a shovel pass that turned out to be a great call by the coaches. It caught Ole Miss off guard. After his catch and run for a thirty-yard gain, Aaron Hernandez fumbled—our first turnover of the year. In the third quarter, on a read play, I was supposed to read the defensive end and the guy he commits to defend (me or the running back) to determine whether to hand the ball to the running back or fake the handoff and keep it. Brandon James and I both let go of the ball, and it fell to the ground. The defensive end—who himself had a read on everything that was happening—recovered our miscue on our own eighteen yard line. That was the only time I fumbled on a handoff exchange in my entire career at Florida.
We knew we were so much better than they were, but we weren’t playing like it. Usually we found a way to win, but we struggled to find one that day. Near the end of the game they scored on a long touchdown pass thrown by Jevan Snead to go up 31–24. The Swamp was silent.
We got the ball back, and I felt that there was no chance they would stop us now—we were going to will the ball down the field. I was right. We drove the ball right down the field for the tying touchdown, but the extra point that we needed for the tie was blocked. The score was 31–30.
We got the ball back again with only a little bit of time left. Again, we felt like we could move the ball. We hit a few passes, things seemed to be going great, but then we missed a couple of passes. Then on a third-down play to the left that I pitched out on at the last second, I thought for certain we’d have the first down. Instead, we came up just short, and it was fourth and one from their thirty-two yard line.
It was the ballgame at that moment. Instead of trying a long field goal—it would have been a forty-nine-yard attempt—Coach called my number on a short yardage play, and Ole Miss made a great call. They slanted the defensive front right side of the line into our play call, blitzed the linebackers right into it, and blitzed the cornerback off the edge of the defense.
There might have been three or four times in my four years that I was stopped on a short-yardage play. Unfortunately, that was one of them.
To this day, I still don’t think that team should’ve beaten us or taken our undefeated season from us. And certainly not at home in the Swamp.
Some fluke things occurred that you have to attribute to our ineffective execution—like my fumbled handoff to Brandon. And Mississippi did a nice job taking advantage of the opportunities as they arose. But going into that game, we felt like we controlled our destiny, and we did, but when we arrived, we could tell that for whatever reasons we simply weren’t mentally or emotionally prepared—any of us. I can’t explain it, but I can tell you this: from my position and role on the team, I felt largely responsible for our falling short in the outcome.
Walking off the field, I couldn’t believe we’d lost. Our only stated goal from the coaches was to win the SEC East and play in the SEC Championship Game, but for us players . . . we also wanted an undefeated season, which had never happened at Florida. That was now gone—the end result of a game we should have won. We might still be able to win the SEC East, or even the National Championship, but we had a loss.
Coach Meyer’s comments to us afterward were positive, but I was struggling with the loss. The players got dressed.
I sat alone in my locker for about forty-five minutes, replaying the game over and over in my head. This wasn’t supposed to have happened. We had spent countless hours over the summer on our own, and then with the coaches in the August heat, to accomplish something that no Florida team had ever accomplished: a perfect season. Now, with an awful second half against a determined, opportunistic Ole Miss team, that undefeated season wasn’t going to happen.
Our Sports Information Department folks kept coming in to ask if I was ready to face the media. Coach Meyer sat right in front of me with his back to me and leaned back against my knee. We sat quietly for quite a while and barely spoke. I knew the media was waiting, but Zack Higbee knew what was going on and was buying extra time for me. I was still crying off and on, and when I thought that I’d finally pulled myself together enough to face the press, I broke down again. I sat there while Coach gave me a hug, doing his best to console me.
Frustrated doesn’t begin to capture how I felt, although that was part of it. I probably went through the five stages of grief a few times in that short period of time: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Initially in what must have been the denial and anger stages, I felt betrayed, that my teammates hadn’t risen to the level we needed. That we hadn’t brought a level of competitiveness, with a work ethic and game-day focus to match, to the contest that day.
The more I reflected on it, however, the feeling of betrayal faded. The problem lay with me, not them. They had all played hard, but it hadn’t been enough. The only thing I could ever control was me and my effort, and I decided that I had been the one who let us down. I took a few minutes to gather my thoughts, and then I got up and began to head out of the locker room with Coach Meyer and Zack to face the media.
In my mind I wasn’t going to make a big deal about this press conference. I simply felt embarrassed and ashamed because I felt I’d personally let the Gator Nation down. I simply wanted to make a little apology to the fans and not make a big deal out of this press conference. So I thought about how I wanted to apologize for the lack of enough effort on my part and to promise that they would see a better effort from me for the rest of the year. Finally, when Coach had calmed me down enough to go to the press conference, my parents walked into the locker room and I got emotional again . . . so we had to start the process over while Zack updated the patiently awaiting questioners that it would just be . . . another . . . minute or two.
Finally I was all set, not that I wanted to face the press or anyone else after that particular game, mind you.
As I started to apologize, I started to get a bit emotional in my remarks, and then I got fired up, because that’s how I tend to get when I’m speaking. Very passionate. What I said was from the heart; I had given it some thought in the locker room, but it was still pretty much off the cuff and right from the heart:
To the fans and everybody in Gator Nation, I’m sorry. I’m extremely sorry. We were hoping for an undefeated season. That was my goal, something Florida has never done here.
I promise you one thing, a lot of good will come out of this. You will never see any player in the entire country play as hard as I will play the rest of the season. You will never see someone push the rest of the team as hard as I will push everybody the rest of the season.
You will never see a team play harder than we will the rest of the season. God bless.
It wasn’t long before they started playing my speech on ESPN
SportsCenter
. My family told me it was fine. It was good—it was me down deep inside. I do remember having a few of the reporters looking at me like I was crazy. My family and I got in the elevator to go to Coach Meyer’s office, and I was covered up in the back of the elevator, hiding, because I didn’t want to be noticed in public anymore that day.
One reporter in the front of the elevator turned to another writer next to him and said, “Holy cow. How about that? I know he’s for real, but I wonder how the public’s going to take that. I think the public will kill him for that.”
Those were the first comments I heard, and I cringed listening to them.
By that night, however, the feedback I was getting was all positive. I think that people agreed with the reporter’s assessment: I was being sincere. I received a lot of calls and texts that night from people to say they appreciated it and they’re supporting me. I have always appreciated the Gator Nation; I certainly did that night. They came through again when I—and my teammates—seemed to need it most.
My comments weren’t all that big of a deal immediately afterward. I had apologized to Gator fans, and then I got more impassioned as I continued speaking. But then it started to take on a life of its own. I couldn’t go anywhere without seeing it posted somewhere or on a television screen.
I was uncomfortable watching shows where people were critiquing it. It wasn’t really meant to stand on its own for all time; it was simply an apology, and a heartfelt moment about having dedicated so much to a cause and then falling short. At some level people understood that, but I can’t say that for the next few days I enjoyed seeing it all that much.
The next day, Coach let me address the team. My comments to my teammates were similar but more intense and personal. In essence I told them I wasn’t asking them to do anything that I wasn’t also going to ask myself to do: simply, that I would be the hardest worker in the country the rest of the season and our team would be as well, if they were willing. Nothing was over. We still had a shot to go on and win and accomplish everything else we had set our sights on.
Coach Meyer changed our schedule from that point forward. In the past, we had always had a light day on Sunday and practice on Monday. He flipped it. We had an unbelievable, passionate practice that Sunday. We could all tell that this was going to be a lot different. We also scheduled a worship service each Sunday afternoon for the team and family members who could attend.
Coach Meyer later told me that receiver David Nelson went to his office after that meeting and told him that he wanted to do whatever he could to get on every special team, play on the offense, and contribute to this team in any way he could.
David and I weren’t the only ones; that loss affected everyone in different ways. But in general, afterward, without it being said, I could see that there was a fire in everybody’s eyes and that things would definitely be different. The next few teams we played were going to have to suffer some wrath. It gave you the feeling that, whoever we were playing, it was as if they had said the wrong thing to your mom. It brought everybody together and created a level of unity I had not seen before. I felt, after that, that everyone was now united with one mission and one goal, not to win the conference or the next game, but rather to win the next play. Then the next. If someone stood in our way, he was going to be overcome—physically and through our preparation, execution, and passion—and we were going to dominate our opponents every step of the game.
From that point forward, as a team, we weren’t thinking in terms of being a great offense or defense, but rather our focus was to exert our planning, ability, determination, and unified will on whoever stood before us—one play at a time. We were going to do what we wanted to do offensively and defensively, and woe to anyone who stood in our way.
As always, our signs in the locker room still read, Get to Atlanta. 47 days to Atlanta. Each day the sign was updated: 46 days to Atlanta . . .
We had a great week
of practice to get ready for Arkansas on the road and started off the game that day in Fayetteville with a great first drive to quiet the crowd down a little. By halftime, we had a comfortable, if not overly impressive, 14–0 lead.
In the second half, leading 17–7, we called a play where we have one receiver run a post route (a route in which he angles toward the goalpost) and another run a wheel route (a route in which the receiver runs an out pattern toward the sideline, then curves the route further up field), Trick Right 50 Z Drive Bullet Alert Zero. (Who thinks up these names?) I dropped back and as I read the coverage, I should have thrown to the receiver running the post route down the middle, but I hesitated and tried to reset myself and throw to the receiver—Percy Harvin—running the wheel route. Not only did I throw it too late and behind Percy, and right into the hands of the Arkansas linebacker who made the interception, but I stepped back as I released the ball and somehow hyperextended my right knee.
By the time I got back to the sideline, I was hurting and furious with myself, and the coaches and everybody knew it. We got the ball back, and several plays later I hit Percy Harvin on a post for a touchdown. It might have been one of the hardest passes I threw my whole life. I stuck it right on his chest, across the goal line—I probably needed to get my emotions in check a bit—but still Percy made the grab effortlessly, putting us ahead, 24–7.
Still, I was so angry and mad at myself that I turned and walked off the field. I could see Coach Meyer watching me with a look of combined frustration and disappointment, because he could see my angry attitude. He was looking at me with his hands in the air, as if he was trying to pump up the Florida fans who had made the trip to Fayetteville. But as he did it, he was mouthing stuff to me like, “Let’s go!” and, “Get excited!”