Through My Eyes (17 page)

I know it sounds dumb to be praying over a football game, but if you’ve ever watched a close football game, then you’ve almost certainly seen one or two guys with their heads bowed during the closing seconds. I’m not sure God is into who wins or loses—He probably is more concerned with what you do in the process and what you will do with either result, to glorify Him and change the world by hopefully impacting one life. But since my parents raised me to pray about anything that’s on my heart, I pray—even if some of those things are trivial in the overall scheme of things.

I had my eyes closed, we were holding hands, and praying when all of a sudden I heard the crowd erupt. I later learned that Jarvis Moss blocked his second kick of the day—preventing a crushing loss and securing a spot for us in the SEC Championship.

I opened my eyes to see Tony Joiner running to get the ball, and I realized from where he picked it up that it must have been blocked. The bench unloaded as we all just ran out onto the field. We celebrated for a long time on the field, a lot longer it seemed than ever before.

The next day in our meetings Coach Meyer had a video guy grab a clip off YouTube from one of the fans to show us how crazy the game was from the fans’ perspective. The whole team was sitting there, stunned, thinking,
Wow, this is crazy
.
This is exciting.
For us to clinch the SEC Eastern Division and, with it, a trip to Atlanta to play in the SEC Championship Game against Arkansas was just another part of the dream of being there. There were some great memories for every one of us, and I was glad to be part of it: Chris’s record-setting performance, Jarvis’s two blocked kicks, and, personally, that fourth down, then later running through that huge hole opened by our guys so we could score the go-ahead touchdown. At that moment, we were only thinking about our goal of winning the SEC Championship. We were all pretty sure that Southern Cal and Ohio State would end up playing in the National Championship game.

Our 62–0 win over Western Carolina that next week wasn’t the most exciting one for the fans that year, but I got to play the second half and really enjoyed it. Coach Meyer let me make checks at the line and call audibles and didn’t really restrict me when we were winning; he just let me go ahead and play.

There would be no overlooking Florida State to focus on the SEC Championship Game for me, or for anyone else on the team. I grew up really not liking FSU. I had vivid memories of them beating us and ending Florida’s undefeated season on Thanksgiving weekend of 1996 in Tallahassee. But then I remembered how nice it was when Florida returned the favor the next year in Gainesville. Oh, and who can ever forget that the Gators’ only National Championship at that point came in a Sugar Bowl blowout over Florida State in January of 1997, just five weeks after that heartbreaking regular-season defeat?

It was close at the start of the game, and as is often the case with this rivalry, neither team was able to sustain any lasting momentum or advantage. We got the ball at our one yard line, and they put me in to try to punch the ball out to give us some breathing room so we’d at least have room to punt. We called a power play, and no one touched the nose guard. He came through scot-free and met me about two yards deep in the end zone.

My brain was screaming that I couldn’t take a safety. I think the score was tied at the time 7–7. I was thinking,
I will not be the reason Florida ever loses to Florida State.
I hit him with all I had and began driving him forward, thinking,
no, no, I can’t take a safety.
Later on, when we reviewed the film, it was pretty neat to watch my obvious determination. I’m driving him so hard that you can see his knees just snap back and he ends up flat on his back. I got the ball to the half yard line. Barely out of the end zone, but out. It wasn’t the breathing room the coaches were hoping for with a loss of a half yard, but it was back out of the end zone. And it really wasn’t a big play to the average fan, or most people watching, but it was something that the coaches took the time to praise me on and then played it again the next day when we watched the film as a full team.

Otherwise, I didn’t get a lot of plays in the FSU game. I got a few short-yardage plays and was able to help us out on most of those. I did run one counter play where I kind of broke outside for about four yards and then spun back inside and was met by Lawrence Timmons, a senior linebacker, who was drafted by the Steelers the following April. Bad idea. It’s not always good to spin back to the inside, because there are a lot of guys coming through that area. We continued to drive down, and Chris hit Dallas Baker on a fade route to the corner of the end zone to win the game. Reggie Nelson dominated the game for us on defense. We won 21–14. Our defense played well, and it was just more of the same story of that year. It wasn’t always pretty, but we survived and somehow came away with a win.

With FSU behind us, the next and biggest hurdle came against number eight Arkansas in the SEC Championship Game. Going into the game, we were ranked fourth in the country, but Ohio State (number one) had already finished their season, and USC (number two) was a heavy favorite to beat UCLA that same day to finish their season and earn the right to meet Ohio State in the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) National Championship Game in January of 2007 in Glendale, Arizona.

During warm-ups, we were quite focused, and as the game got underway, we jumped on them early in the second quarter. Chris scored on a called running play, and our defensive scheme was awesome and executed to perfection to shut down Darren McFadden and Felix Jones. We took a 17–7 lead into halftime when Coach Meyer dropped the bombshell news on us: UCLA had just beaten USC, 13–9. If we took care of business, we could very well be playing for the National Championship.

Arkansas, however, had different plans, and in the second half they came back to take the lead from us. After that, the game was back and forth. Clinging to a three-point lead in the fourth quarter, we drove the ball down to Arkansas’s five yard line, at which point Coach put me in for a play that we had practiced all that week: I faked a handoff then faked running toward the line of scrimmage, and then pitched it back to Bubba Caldwell, who had circled back from his wide-out position. Bubba then threw a pass to Tate Casey, who was wide open in the end zone, and that put the game away. Our defense did a great job all game—but especially after that. We were able to run the ball, methodically move it, and just manage the clock for rest of the game.

As time remaining wound down, the coaches put me in to run the clock out. I ran a few yards here and there on various plays. Power right, counter left, counter right, power left. Just kept doing that over and over, and in those runs, with great blocking up front, we were able to seal the game. We won the seventh SEC title in Florida history by a score of 38–28.

The next day, we learned that we had leapfrogged number three Michigan and would end up playing undefeated number one Ohio State in the BCS National Championship Game. I don’t think anyone can explain the BCS system exactly, but I do know that it worked to our benefit over Michigan that year. And at that moment, I had no complaints about the BCS.

As you would expect,
my whole family—except for Katie and her husband, Gannon, who were too close to her due date to travel—went to Glendale, Arizona, for the BCS National Championship Game and had a great time touring and visiting the area, while my time was pretty much occupied by practice and game-related activities.

I wasn’t particularly nervous. I was excited, but that energy came from hoping I would play a lot.

Although we felt we were ready, you never know how you will perform after a month without playing a game, and sure enough, the game started with Ted Ginn Jr.’s running the opening kickoff back to the house. Touchdown, Ohio State.

There we were—down 7–0 before we could even catch our breath after warm-ups. Not how we wanted to start after hearing for five weeks about how much better Ohio State was than we were. We were sick of hearing that. We were ready to hit somebody. After watching the film, we didn’t think they were very fast, and we were going to gain a speed advantage with guys like Bubba Caldwell and Percy Harvin. To those who thought they would be more physical than us, we could all remember back to the mat drills and Coach Mick, and we knew we were going to show not just Ohio State but all the pundits and prognosticators just how physical we could be. That was our mentality going in, but the opening kickoff seemed to validate what others had been saying.

But only for about eight seconds.

Instead of folding, we took their kickoff and marched the ball right down the field; then Chris threw a touchdown pass to Dallas Baker to tie the game at seven apiece. That got the momentum on our side. I ran once during that drive and a couple of times on the next possession after our defense forced Ohio State to punt after three plays. We scored on that drive as well to take a 14–7 lead. Our defense was shutting them down. We were blitzing everybody—and often—bringing a bunch of guys at a time. I doubt they had ever seen a defense with that much speed; we were shutting them down from every angle.

We added to our lead, and then with a few minutes left to go in the second quarter, and with us already ahead 27–14, we forced a turnover. Chris then completed a few passes, got down to the one yard line, when they called another one of my plays. It was a play where I motion Bubba Caldwell across, running behind the line, catch the snap, fake a power run, and boot to the left. Marcus Freeman, their outstanding linebacker, was right there and ran into the hole, thinking I was running; then when I pulled up and went to boot outside, I could almost hear him and was sure I could see him mouth, “
Uh oh
.” Bubba was wide open for the pass I threw—another touchdown, and we led 34–14 at the half.

The second half I got to play even more, running the ball to run the clock down. In the meantime, our defense never let Ohio State get into the game. Midway through the fourth quarter we got near the goal line again, and they put me in on a fourth and one. I had lobbied hard to go in. I remember standing in Coach Meyer’s line of sight—probably unnecessary given the volume of my voice—yelling, “I’ll score! I’ll score!” I scored, finishing with one touchdown passing, and one touchdown running.

More important, we won the second National Championship in school history, 41–14. Chris played very well and was named MVP of the BCS National Championship Game. Well deserved. I was happy for him, a senior, ending it on a good note.

That first night after the game, we had a lot of fun, enjoyed just hanging out with everybody. Celebrating a long year’s work. We flew back, and those flights are really just the best. I hate flying—imagine those long flights to the Philippines—but after a game like that, you look forward to those flights. There’s something about being together, celebrating and reflecting on all you accomplished together, after all the work you put in—you just can’t help but enjoy it, whether you like to fly or not. Upon returning to Gainesville, we had the Gator celebration in the Swamp at UF after that, and to be able to watch everything and see the thousands of fans gathered and be with them was remarkable. I remember how familiar it all seemed, because growing up I had a DVD of the 1996 National Championship year, which I watched all the time. I remembered Coach Spurrier had everyone chanting, “
We’re number one
.” Now that was us.

And just think, in just three short months from that day in Glendale, Arizona, Coach Billy Donovan and our University of Florida men’s basketball team would defeat the Ohio State University men’s basketball team in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia, to again win the National Championship in basketball, and, in doing so, to become the first basketball team in fifteen years to win back-to-back National Championships. That spring, the University of Florida was clearly number one.

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

—E
PHESIANS 4:32

Our off-season
wasn’t all that bright or positive. When we got back to campus in January after the National Championship, the team took a few days off, but soon enough both classes and training for spring practice began. Right away, it seemed like a lot of guys were taking things a little bit for granted, like some were being a bit lazy when it came to getting back to business and defending our National Championship. We had just come off a year where we had all worked so hard during that 2006 season, been recognized nationally for our efforts, and, more important, earned an incredible platform from which to influence kids and others for good. It was something that I believed we should take seriously and build upon. A lot of my teammates agreed and came ready to go. But too many others seemed to have a different attitude.

What some of us saw in them seemed worse than being lazy or being too causal; it seemed more like there was an entitlement atmosphere, an expectation that things and positions should just be theirs because of the previous year, an attitude that led to a lack of commitment. Too many seemed to have an attitude of, “I earned my role last year and am entitled to it and intend to claim it and enjoy it.” We did not appear to have the sense of commitment that had helped us win the National Championship.

To me, though, it wasn’t about the SEC Championship or another National Championship in 2007. It wasn’t about what we would or would not accomplish. It was about coming together and committing ourselves to one another to be the best we could be. It was about building relationships around sacrifice for the team, wanting the best for the other guy, and not caring who got the credit for our mutual success.

Instead, some of the guys weren’t going to class or working out individually as hard or purposefully as they should have. Other guys, guys who knew better, simply enabled that kind of behavior and allowed it to continue—when a well-placed word, example, or influence from them might have changed the effort for the better. And some of the new faces on the team liked that they were coming into the Gators’ history, but what they didn’t all realize was that this history was earned off the sweat and sacrifice of others—not by them.

I may have been particularly sensitive to what I perceived as a drop-off in intensity and commitment that spring because I was entering the year as the starting quarterback. We weren’t nearly as talented in 2007, especially on defense, and needed to work really hard.

We simply didn’t have enough guys who were workers, committed to the sacrifice it would take. We knew we were going to have some talent returning and new guys coming in as new members of the team, but there were definitely some things missing in the off-season. And, along the way, there were additional struggles with guys who were getting into trouble for a number of different things.

We needed to get to a better place as we began the 2007 season.There were many times we were able to do well, and there were enough of those moments, which allowed us to achieve what we achieved.

But for what purpose? A trophy? A ring? I don’t believe so. That’s a temporary reward. It won’t satisfy. It won’t fulfill us for the long haul.

• • •

Complicating matters
for me was the fact that I had injured my shoulder during the 2006 season, so during the winter workouts freshman Cam Newton and our other quarterback, Brian Wagner, worked out with our receivers, easing the load on my shoulder as it healed. I headed out with them each day as they threw to our wide receivers, contributing and helping by teaching them the offense and the various routes that we ran.

Cam was naturally gifted, strong, and athletic.

He was similar to me before I got serious with weights in that he is what I’ve referred to as being “farmer strong,” one of those people who is just naturally strong, not from the supplemental process of lifting weights. It was pleasure to work with Cam and have some influence on his life.

With Cam and Brian taking some of the load, I had a chance to heal a bit while still working hard in all other aspects during the off-season. By the time spring practice rolled around, I was feeling physically much better, and overall I had a good spring and spring game. I solidified my position as the starting quarterback heading into the summer, but I was still concerned with our level of preparation during that off-season and the impact it could have on our performance in the fall.

I wanted to do everything I could, however, to make sure I was ready and in a position to be able to do my best, so Coach Mick worked with me individually a number of times. We had done this several times during my freshman spring, and we continued throughout my career. On days when we would only run or have a light workout in the morning, I would go back to him in the afternoon for more work. In the process, he’d try to see how close he could come to breaking me. Actually, for as similar as Coach Mick and I are, he probably wanted to see if he
could
break me.

It might have only lasted for forty-five minutes or an hour, but those workouts with Coach Mick were exhausting. One of the things he loved to do was have me squat with my knees at ninety degrees, my thighs parallel to the floor and my back against the wall. He would then start to stack forty-five-pound plates and sandbags on my thighs and yell, “Don’t you move! Hold it! Hold it! I’ll tell you when we’re done!” I would hold it until my body was shaking and on the verge of collapse, and he’d then—usually—release me.

Other exercises, he would have me do at least fifty repetitions. For instance, he’d put me on the leg- or bench-press station, and then he’d pick a weight slightly lower than my “max,” the maximum weight that I could lift. I’d lift it as many times as I could—often seven, based on his starting weight. Once my arms or legs were shaking and I couldn’t raise the bar again, he’d take the weight from me and put it back on the rack. Then he’d pick a weight that was slightly less, and I’d pick up with the exercise where I left off: eight, nine, and so on. Once I failed at that weight, he’d take it from me and lower the weight, and we’d pick up again, continuing that process of changing and lowering weights until we reached fifty repetitions. Then he’d take me to the next exercise, for fifty repetitions of that, in a similar fashion of lowering the weights when I reached exhaustion on each one. By the time we’d finish the seated bench press, for instance, I wouldn’t be able to feel my arms or hands. I know what you have to be thinking—about Coach Mick. About me.

We’d often do several exercises, such as seated rows, pull ups with weight around my waist, abdominal exercises that we took straight from some of those done by Sylvester Stallone in
Rocky IV
, and a seated bench press to work my shoulders, and he always loved to finish with the leg press. He saved the hardest for last.

The whole routine was as much for improving my mental strength as it was for increasing my physical strength. It built up a lot of confidence in me, but Coach Mick didn’t do it with many guys, because some guys would end up quitting in the process, and he knew that wouldn’t help their confidence at all. Actually he was afraid that it might dampen it. The Pounceys, Maurkice and Mike, were both good at those workouts as well. Not many others did them. Coach Mick’s workouts were based on triggering the sympathetic nervous system—I can vouch for that; there was always a definite moment of “fight or flight” when working out with Coach Mick.

After a Friday workout like that, I wouldn’t be able to walk without a limp until at least Sunday. That’s why we couldn’t do those kinds of workouts during the season; there never was enough recovery time available before we had to be back on the practice field or in a game.

Still it wasn’t all work.

During that off-season, I was working on statistics homework in the academic center, when a car pulled up right as I was leaving the building. Phil Trautwein was driving, and Butchie Rowley, David Nelson, and another friend were all there. They told me to jump in, because they were headed to a little place in Gainesville to see Kenny Chesney. I didn’t understand why they were coming by to grab me, when they explained that the place only seated about two hundred people—it was a private concert. And since they didn’t have tickets, they figured having a quarterback with them was their best chance to get in.

I grew up a pretty big country-music fan, especially in high school. I just really liked it because the lyrics tell stories and I felt it was a lot more real than some other types of music. Obviously it’s got its stereotypes about dogs, trucks, beer, and kissing your cousin, but I like the way it sounds. I actually got my dad into it. I put a bunch of songs on my dad’s iPod and he listened to them on the way to the Philippines. When he returned, he said his favorites were George Strait, Brad Paisley, and Kenny Chesney. Not a bad trio.

I thought the effort was futile; I didn’t think there was a chance we’d get in. Sure enough, we were outside, milling around, unable to get in. After a few moments, a security guard recognized me and said, “Go Gators,” and about thirty minutes later, he brought out one of Kenny Chesney’s managers and the head of his security. They said Kenny would love for us to come on his bus and chat for a few minutes. The kicker? I could only pick one friend to come. Not a good scene, since they were the ones who initiated the trip. Of course, they started arguing and arguing, and we never could resolve it. Finally, we drove the head of security crazy, so he told us all to come to the bus.

After chatting with Kenny for a few minutes—he’s so cool that you’d never know he’s a Tennessee fan—we then watched his show for about an hour off to the side, before he decided that he would bring me up onstage and Butchie followed.

We ended up on stage, Kenny asked me to say a few words, and then asked if we knew “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy.” I’m not a singer, so more than anything I did the Gator chomp a few times and swayed side to side. By the end, Kenny put on a UF football helmet; he caught some grief back home for that, but, hey, sooner or later we all end up as Gator fans, right?

Our first game
of the season was against Western Kentucky, and for that entire week I was pumped, since it would be my first game as a starter. That moment of coming to the Swamp as the starting quarterback was something I’d looked forward to all off-season—not to mention my whole life.

Things went pretty well, considering. We hit some good passes, made some good runs, and played how we needed to against a team that was clearly overmatched. We didn’t take them lightly, though. We competed every down and played hard, and as a result, we won my first start and the first start for a few others as well. With our offense I ended up throwing for exactly three hundred yards. When you play a team like that, you expect them to be scrappy since they may not be as athletically talented. That team, surprisingly, was one of the dirtiest teams I’ve faced in my career. More than a few times it seemed that they were trying to get their fingers through my face mask while we were in a pile. The only logical reason, it seemed to me, was to get to one of my eyes. Just a guess.

Anyway, Coach pulled me in the fourth quarter, and Cam Newton finished the game, did a solid job, and scored our last touchdown.

That game was unique for another reason: it was called because of lightning midway through the fourth quarter. Our 49–3 lead that we held at the time instantly became the final score.

I know people often criticized the strength (or lack of perceived strength) of our out-of-conference schedule, but our next opponent, Troy, had a solid team. We knew we needed to start out with great intensity and try to get up on them right away by playing well and hard. With their version of the spread offense, that team can put up a lot of points on you before you know it. We started well with intensity and determination and ended up scoring every time we had the ball in the first half, building a lead of 49–7 by halftime. They were playing a soft cover-two defense and letting our receivers get a clean release off the line of scrimmage without bumping them too much, so we were able to take advantage of our “vertical” passing attack by completing deep passes downfield, or in the football vernacular “over the top” of the defense.

In the second half we came out totally unfocused, and they began to chip into our lead. The first-half score and seeing what we were able to do, instead of creating a hunger for us to continue, apparently caused us to lose a bit of our intensity. After Troy quickly scored seventeen unanswered points to start the half, we finally regrouped and regained our focus enough to fend them off, 59–31.

That next week in practice we definitely had a number of things we needed to improve on, especially when it came to making midgame adjustments and learning to not just “pull up” in the middle of the game. This was where the lack of intensity that I’d been so worried about during spring practice was showing itself. With the Tennessee game at home looming large in front of us that week, we had to learn how to finish games and cut down on our penalties.

Though I’d started for the previous two weeks, that did little to stop the butterflies in my stomach as we prepared to take the field against Tennessee. The Swamp was going crazy—it felt like the fans didn’t let up from pregame until the game was finally finished—thank goodness. We needed every one of them.

The Vols got the ball first, but our defense stopped them on three plays. They punted to us, and Brandon James was electrifying as he ran the punt back eighty-three yards for a touchdown. The whole stadium was shaking.

It was a lead we would never relinquish. We raced out to a 28–13 halftime lead as I took a shot downfield and hit “Coop” (Riley Cooper) for a touchdown. We ended up doing a lot of different things, spreading them out, and running bootlegs. We passed for a second touchdown, and I ran for one before halftime. To start the second half, we received the opening kickoff and got a great drive going. We marched the ball down the field, deep into their territory, and hoped to put the game away with a speed post down the middle of the field to Coop.