Through My Eyes (28 page)

My family, sitting and watching this all unfold before them in the stands, were horrified, and as they always do in times good and bad, they started to pray. It was an awful-looking hit, and the chief of neurosurgery at Kentucky later told my dad that he was sure my spinal cord had been damaged.

AP and our training staff, as well as Kentucky’s staff, all immediately flew into action, as trainers always do when someone gets badly hurt. And the ones we have, along with Doctor Pete (Indelicato), at the University of Florida are exceptional. I’ve always appreciated that about sports-medicine professionals—they are a part of the team, but when someone goes down, the team allegiances fall away as they scramble to attend to the player. Any player.

I threw up as I was taken off in a cart—they were good enough to have draped me with a towel so I could at least have a moment of privacy. My parents rode in the back of the ambulance to the hospital, concerned and praying as I was checked out.

Coach Meyer came straight over to the University of Kentucky Medical Center, not far from the stadium, immediately following the game. He told me that my first question when I briefly came to on the field was, “Did I hold on to the ball?” I did. And my second, in the hospital, was, “Did we win?” We did, and John Brantley had filled in nicely for me in the fourth quarter. I found that to be consoling. Of course, I hated that I hadn’t finished the game alongside my teammates, but I was pleased they had gone on to win.

Coach started telling me about the game, which my family says was about the time the fog started to lift for me. The medical staff kept me up all night, not letting me fall asleep, and took really good care of me. I checked out fine and returned to Gainesville the next day.

It’s noteworthy, for reasons that don’t immediately come to mind, that both times I went to Lexington, I came back injured. Those were good games, and I’d love to have them everywhere I played, but I just wish I could have the good games minus the injuries.

Thank goodness we had a bye week following the Kentucky game, because our next game was in Baton Rouge. We were ranked number one, and they were ranked number four, and despite our loss there in 2007, I loved playing in Tiger Stadium.

Florida flew in a concussion specialist from Pittsburgh to look at me. After evaluating me, he determined that one of the most important factors for me to be able to play again was that I be completely free of headaches for a certain number of days. To this end, the prescribed course of treatment was that I had to sit in my darkened apartment for days with no stimulation. No television, no reading. Just dark with no input of any kind whatsoever.

The LSU fans didn’t seem to have my new cell-phone number, so that helped keep things quiet too.

I was so worried that I wouldn’t get to play that I did everything I could to stay quiet and in the dark. I wasn’t worried about playing again. I’d been hit plenty of times—hard—but had always bounced back. I didn’t fear playing or being hit. I just prayed that the Lord would allow me to play—quickly. In keeping with my personality, that if a little is good then a lot is better, I stayed totally quiet and dark for the week. It was hard, but I tried to keep my thoughts quiet as well.

After our bye weekend, I was allowed to start to take on some light activities.

There was so much speculation as to whether I would play or not. It seems that everyone in the media had an opinion, which they were more than happy to share. I didn’t care. I don’t pay attention to all the noise out there, since everyone always seems to have an opinion, whether the person has the facts or not. For me, it was easy. I was going to do everything I could to get out there—by doing what the medical professionals were telling me to do.

The guessing continued right up until game time. Coach Addazio put together two game plans, one for me, and one for Johnny Brantley. I was worried about the flight, since, as with roller coasters, my head doesn’t always respond well to flights, but as it turned out, the flight wasn’t an issue.

After a number of tests, the doctors cleared me to play the morning of the game, but Coach took me aside before we got on the bus to go to Tiger Stadium.

“I’m not going to let you play,” he said. He had tears in his eyes—he knew how much it meant to me.

“I
have
to play,” I responded.

He cut me off. “I keep asking myself, if you were Nate, would I let you play? I keep saying, ‘No.’ I can’t let you play.” He really wanted to win, but he was unwilling to take a chance with my health.

“But they cleared me, and I haven’t had headaches in days,” I countered. “There’s no reason for me not to play.”

“No headaches?”

“No, Coach. No headaches.” A headache had been starting to set in, but for all I know, it was from stress or a migraine, not the concussion.

Coach Meyer softened and said that we’d decide after warm-ups. All other things being equal, he would have erred on the side of caution, but I know my desire to play was eating at him.

I was praying in the locker room that the headache, which had been getting worse and worse, would simply go away. It didn’t. I could barely see by the end of pregame warm-ups, it was hurting so badly.

Even though I don’t recommend for anyone to ever do this, I played.

We started our first drive from our own seven yard line. Coach sent me in, and then, the moment I crossed the wide, white sideline and ran across the twenty-five yard line (Tiger Stadium is the only stadium I ever played in that paints the numbers every five yards instead of merely every ten) toward the end zone, my head completely cleared. No pain. I don’t know if it was the adrenaline, the warm wishes from the LSU faithful directed my way, or the Lord’s touch, but the pain was gone instantaneously. It never came back.

I only carried a couple of times, anyway, as the coaches didn’t want me to take any more blows. We marched eighty-two yards on that first drive and kicked a field goal to take a 3–0 lead, and then they tied it in the second quarter. We really struggled on offense, but our defense stepped up in a big way. Right before halftime, I hit Riley Cooper on a twenty-four-yard touchdown, and our defense made that touchdown stand up. We won, 13–3. It was a great return to Baton Rouge.

We were very happy heading back to Gainesville. Certainly we would have liked to have done more on offense, but we were limited with what we could do because of my injury. So much of our offense was predicated upon the possibility that I would rush the ball, but everyone knew—especially LSU’s defense—that wasn’t going to happen. Not that night. At the end of the day, that was a good win against a very good team.

We had things to work on that week but were upbeat as we practiced. We had gotten over a major hurdle without being at full strength.

The game against Arkansas was remarkable the following week at our place. My head had been totally fine ever since I stepped onto the field at Louisiana State. Arkansas played well. It was a game to remember, even though our fans seemed less than pleased that it was so close. The whole game consisted of missed opportunities, which kept it close. We had an uncharacteristic number of fumbles and missed tackles, and for a while it felt like the Ole Miss game of 2008 all over again. There was no way I was going to let that happen. No way.

At one point, I hit Chris Rainey, who was wide open on a swing route. There was no one between him and a seven-yard touchdown except for the safety, and Chris totally made the guy miss. As the safety was falling away, he stuck his foot out and kicked the ball, which caused the ball to fly out of Chris’s grip, up into the air, and onto the turf. They recovered. No one else was even in the area to tackle Chris, and yet a stray foot caused a turnover. Later on, Aaron Hernandez fumbled after a long reception on which he’d made a great effort, and still later I was stripped of the ball and they recovered the fumble. Just totally bizarre stuff, which was what made it reminiscent of the Ole Miss game from the previous year. Here they were with the worst statistical defense in the conference, and we couldn’t put them away. In fact, we were trailing until late in the game.

We tied the game in the fourth quarter at 20 on a great play by Jeff Demps, and then we got the ball back. On that final drive, we were trying to score and leave as little time remaining on the clock as possible. In addition to our four turnovers and numerous dropped passes, our defense had even struggled, surprisingly. After saving us against LSU, they had an off day against a very solid Arkansas offense. Because of that, we didn’t want to leave any time for Arkansas’s offense to get back on the field.

I felt that it was our turn on offense to step up—I mean we had turned the ball over an unacceptable four times. I told Coach to give me the ball; I was in one of those crazy moods.

I ended up throwing for thirty yards on that drive and rushing for twenty-two more. On a third and ten play, we called time-out and then ran a play to Coop, where if it was man-to-man, one-on-one, he was going to run a stop route and I would put it right on him. The defender would think Coop was running a fade to the end zone, but instead we’d just get the first down.

If they weren’t in man, then we’d probably go to Hernandez on an in cut. They gave us man-to-man and blitzed. Coop tripped coming off the line, but he scrambled up and I hit him in the chest for a first down. A huge play. Of course, the pass was at chest level because he was going to the ground again, and he actually made the catch of my low pass while on a knee—an amazing grab.

At the end of our drive, Caleb Sturgis kicked a field goal to win it with nine seconds left. I didn’t open my eyes until I heard the crowd roar; 23–20.

Sure, it shouldn’t have been that close, but it was a fun game and a gut check for us. We had been confronted with the Ole Miss game, the 2009 version, only this time we’d survived. We had to find a way to win that game, and we did. I was proud of our team.

On the one hand, it was troubling to have struggled with Arkansas. On the other, every team has the occasional game that they simply have to escape. When you’re on the field scraping it out, you’re not thinking about “style points” or coaches voting or what people on ESPN will say when the highlight reel rolls; you’re thinking about winning the game. A win is a win, and we’d gotten exactly that. While there was a mild sense of anxiety over the game itself, we felt that we would have a chance to correct any shortcomings moving forward. We were still undefeated, and that was what mattered.

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, and I have kept the faith.

—2 T
IMOTHY 4:7

I knew Mississippi State
would be interesting. We were looking forward to seeing Coach Mullen and hoped that our knowing him as well as we did would counter any advantage he might gain by how well he knew our schemes and our personnel.

Therefore, going in, everyone knew that Coach Mullen was going to design some stuff for us because he knew our physical limitations and tendencies, and, man, did he deliver.

The game started off well. In the second quarter, I rushed for a touchdown to tie Herschel Walker for the all-time SEC rushing touchdown record. But things went downhill from there. We were ahead 13–3 right before halftime and were driving against the Mississippi State defense, trying to put the game away. We were inside their ten yard line. Coach Mullen knew exactly what my check was on this certain play, so they showed like they were blitzing but didn’t. I threw it up to the corner at the goal line as they anticipated. It was tipped and intercepted by Johnthan Banks, who ran it back one hundred yards for a touchdown, making it 13–10 going into the locker room at halftime.

A bad play by me, and now we were only up three. There was clearly some dissention in the locker room. It was not going well, and making matters worse on the other side of the ball was the fact that Brandon Spikes wasn’t playing due to a hurt groin.

Finally, in the fourth quarter, we scored a touchdown on a run by Chris Rainey to put us up by nine and give us some breathing room. On Mississippi State’s next possession, Dustin Doe returned an interception for a touchdown to put the game away. I’m thankful that he did, because I then threw another interception that was returned for a touchdown. Coach Mullen definitely had my number that night.

Even before my last interception, it had already been a tough night. A defensive leader had a pointed comment for me on the sidelines, which didn’t sit well with any of us on offense. For four years we had always stuck together, with no finger pointing between the offense and defense, regardless of what was happening. I don’t know what it was that was bothering him, but the Pounceys responded to him, and things started to heat up on the sidelines. I grabbed the Pounceys and pulled them away, but at the same time I was just as mad about the situation as they were.

We ended up winning, but it wasn’t a good feeling for anybody; we were all a bit empty. I was really upset by it all after the game—my interceptions, our poor play, the moment on the sidelines. Afterward my family encircled me, under the stadium, helping me deal with it all.

From the outer edges of our group I could hear somebody asking to get through to me—Dan Mullen. He was great. He took me aside, put his arm around me, and encouraged me with thoughts both football-related and otherwise. It was a moment I’ll never forget.

He didn’t ask about my eye black, however. It was Ephesians 4:32, which was particularly appropriate for that day—“Be kind to one another, tender-hearted . . .” I’d heard that he had started an optional coaches’ Bible study for the Mississippi State staff, which is impressive. It’s tough to give up staff-meeting time, but he did. It’s simply amazing what God will do with relationships if we allow Him to work in our lives.

When we got back to Gainesville, we had a leadership meeting and a team meeting. The leadership meeting was with Coach Meyer, Coach Mick, the coordinators, and some of the player-leaders. The defensive player sincerely apologized, and we went on our way with that behind us.

Still, there was no denying that it had become a surprisingly tough season. If we weren’t winning in perfect fashion, then we were very dissatisfied. That’s a tough standard to live with. And I think that because we had such a high standard and such high expectations—Best Ever—we put unnecessary pressure on ourselves at times rather than just going out and playing the game. We’d been looking so hard for a way to motivate ourselves in the off-season, and that title of Best Ever seemed to get everyone motivated and thinking the right things. But in actuality, what we really needed to do was focus on doing whatever we could to get ready to win games. The labels could always come later.

And honestly, we should have relaxed. We were a team stretched tight like a rubber band. We were probably starting to fray at the edges, and that was in no small part because of the pressure that we’d put on ourselves. I wish we had all taken a step back at some point, but charging ahead always seemed like the right thing—keep our focus, keep working harder. We needed to appreciate where we were, where we’d been, and who we were. But in that moment, this was a very tough thing to do.

We pushed ahead and got ready for our annual skirmish in Jacksonville. Even though they had a lot of talent and a lot of good players, Georgia wasn’t as good as the year before. Of course, that didn’t stop them from talking their usual trash during pregame. They came out wearing these new uniforms with black helmets, and we just went to work on them. I threw two touchdown passes in the first quarter and then rushed for a touchdown in the second, breaking former Georgia Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker’s all-time SEC rushing touchdown mark. To do that against Georgia, in my hometown, made it that much better. I kept that ball and gave it to my dad for Christmas.

After a first half like that, we knew we were in control, and we went on to beat them handily, 41–17. The only controversy came when Brandon Spikes tried to poke a guy in the eye. Coach Meyer suspended him for the first half of the next game, because what he did was wrong. He shouldn’t have done that, without question. Brandon would tell you that too.

At the same time, though, people are so naive about what happens on the field. Spikes said he was retaliating for someone’s trying to do the same to him earlier in the game, and I believe him. After all, I had three occasions in that game as well when guys were trying to grab my neck or gouge my eyes. And you do not want to know what happens in piles in every game, with guys trying to grab someone in places that could cause some serious pain. It’s awful, but it’s not like Spikes invented this stuff.

I agreed with the punishment as a way to hopefully deter this in the future—Spikes himself ended up agreeing to sit out the entire next game because of the outcry—but I think people were singling him out unfairly. Maybe we could get more pictures from piles or maybe get the referees to pay more attention—I’ll bet something like that happened to me at least forty times in my college career. A lot of good players that I played against unfortunately engaged in stuff like this.

With Brandon out for our next game at Vandy, our concerns about being without one of our best players on defense were eased by the hope that we could repeat our solid victory over them from the previous year. While we didn’t put up the kind of numbers that our offense was used to, our defense had a stellar performance, as we beat them by a score of 27–3.

There was no doubt we were better than they were, but as with some of the earlier games that season, our play was only good, not great. This was especially true on offense where we encountered a carefully designed game plan that they executed well. They had a solid cornerback, Myron Lewis, who stayed on Riley Cooper all game. They gambled that he could stay on Coop without help, and then they had the rest of their guys available to help on Hernandez and the rest of our offensive threats. Lewis played great, and that was a game when we missed some of the receiving talent—Caldwell, Murphy, and Harvin—that we’d lost the last few years to the NFL.

People everywhere were looking for a reason to explain what was off about our offense, and often that reason was Percy Harvin’s absence. While there’s no doubt that not having Percy’s explosive ability hurt us, in my opinion, the person we missed most was Louis Murphy, who I’d always thought was publicly underappreciated. Murph was the guy that we were going to on third downs when we had to have it, because he was going to find a way to get open and beat man coverage and win the play. He and I were always on the same page. I could look at him a certain way and he’d know what I was thinking. He was also the hardest working receiver I’d ever played with. Other guys worked really hard, too, but every single day my freshman through junior years Louis would stay after practice, keep working, and then work more on his own.

His drive was clearly exhibited on a play that year. While we were missing him, he was playing well for the Oakland Raiders. Zach Miller, the Raiders’ tight end, caught an eighty-six yard touchdown pass that never would have happened but for Louis’s hustle to get out in front of the play and block three different guys at different times. Three. I love that. That’s what I mean about Louis Murphy.

As we prepared the next week, we continued to try and refine our offense and make improvements based on what each game was showing us. This was crucial because the next game was at South Carolina, and it was tough, as always. With the sense that we still could be playing better ringing in our ears, I was pleased that we were able to make that game one of the best games of the year. Very early in the game I hit Coop on a skinny post (almost a straight line pattern toward the goal post, almost down the exact center of the field) for a touchdown. Even though we didn’t score a lot that day, I did a good job of managing the options and audibles to get us into some good plays. There was even one fourth down and one, at their twenty-five yard line; I audibled to an option to an overload that wasn’t even in our game plan for the week. We were able to get the edge, and I pitched to Demps, who scored on it.

In general, the game was going much as we’d hoped it would. Unlike the Vandy game, we were playing more like ourselves, executing better, and maintaining possession. Then, in the third quarter, I was running down the middle, when I cut it inside and tried to sidestep someone going low for the tackle and at the same time hurdle him. He hit my leg, and I flipped over him, landing on the back of my head. I got up and started walking toward the wrong sideline, when Coop grabbed me and pulled me back to the huddle. On that next play the offensive guys helped me call the play because I was still gathering myself as to exactly where I was.

AP was always very alert and aware, so when I got to the sidelines after the drive, he asked if I was okay. I was dizzy but didn’t let on to him that I was anything but okay. We never told anyone, but Coop and the rest of the offense knew. It went away quickly and I was fine the rest of the game. We won, 24–14.

After dispatching Florida International University, FSU was coming to town for my last game in the Swamp. Senior Day. It was an emotional week, between a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and the knowledge that my last game was coming. I could see that Coach Meyer was pretty emotional that week, too, so I tried not to think about it too much, but we spoke of it some during the week leading up—our last game together in the Swamp. We talked around it a little, that we wouldn’t be able to spend as much time together in the future when I was no longer playing, but neither of us had the heart to bring it up directly.

We had really great practices as a team that week, and the coaches’ speeches before the game made for a great atmosphere. It started with Vitamin Addazio. He’s one of the best at pregame speeches, anyway, which is why Coach Meyer nicknamed him Vitamin Addazio—because time with him gave us a charge. That day his talk was packed even fuller than usual, as he spoke about the seniors, what the group had accomplished, and our overall level of character. The other coaches spoke as well, and by the end we were all a mixture of being ready to play and never wanting it to end.

By pregame warm-up time, I was throwing the football badly. I wouldn’t have said that I was so emotional that it was throwing me off, but I’d never had that happen before. I don’t know what happened. I asked David Nelson to come into the locker room so I could throw the ball to him in there to continue to get loose even after pregame.

Eventually they began reading off the names of seniors, and one by one they’d run out onto the field. I hadn’t thought much about what I was going to do when they announced my name and I ran out on the field by myself—for that one last game. Other people did stuff when they got called. I figured I would just go out of the tunnel like every other game, give Coach a hug, and go win the game.

When I was waiting in line—I was the last one— I was seeing the other guys go out, and they were getting hugs and everything. It got so emotional, and I really didn’t even think I was going to get emotional, but by the time it was my turn and I was up—I was already crying. I took off out of the tunnel, one last time, and reached Coach Meyer, who was also crying.

So many lunches. So many times hanging out at his lake place near Gainesville. So many film sessions. So many discussions. So many Bible studies. So many plays called. Injuries and chipped teeth. So many moments that we would always remember. He would always be there in my life, but it was going to be different. I later heard that fans were getting emotional as well when they saw us—it was impossible for us not to be emotional, too. I’m not sure why I ever thought that I wouldn’t.

That was pretty much the end that day for FSU. Game over.

Somehow, the emotion of the moment and the extra throwing with David changed everything—when the game started, I began hitting all my receivers. I played my best game of the year against FSU. Probably because I was playing FSU. We killed them. We had great checks. They were covering our receivers really tight, but our guys were still able to create enough separation that I was able to put it on them. Anything and everything we wanted to do, we were doing on offense.

Behind a great offensive line, I threw three touchdown passes, and ran for two more. I even fumbled late in the game, but for once I didn’t beat myself up too much about it. The fumble came at the end of a good play and we were killing them by that point. It still bothered me . . . but it was a really awesome play.