The look on the face of the hostess a Yamato — a Japanese steakhouse and Hibachi restaurant in Gainesville — is probably one of utter terror. 15 young men — weighing a collective 4,600 pounds — walk in as a group and they’re hungry.
Last year Luke Del Rio took it upon himself to take the Florida Gators starting offensive linemen out to dinner each week. A savvy and generous move for Del Rio, but it didn’t include the entire offensive line. This year they took it upon themselves to make sure they were getting to know each other on and off the field.
“We did a lot of outings this year. We went to Yamato, great place if you all know about Yamato, great place. We had some hibachi,” starting center T.J. McCoy said. “We went to Outback and ordered some wings and cheese fries. We went fishing, catfish fishing, went to a couple of ponds in Gainesville. That was pretty fun to do.”
What does a 300-pound offensive lineman order at a Hibachi restaurant?
“You get the Yamato special,” he said. “You get triple rice, you get triple noodles and you get steak and chicken.”
It’s a meal with well over 2,800 calories, not including drinks or the famous white sauce that Yamato serves with their Hibachi meals. There are no leftovers when Florida’s offensive line goes out to eat.
The offensive line has heard the criticism thrown their way the last five years. They’ve been called the weak link, blamed for injuries to quarterbacks and blamed for stagnant offenses. They’ve led the SEC in sacks allowed and were the forefront for the SEC’s least effective rushing unit in 2016.
This year they’re the talk of the team. Jim McElwain has gushed about the offensive line and new offensive line coach Brad Davis.
Davis spent last season at North Texas with stops at East Carolina and James Madison before that. This is his first foray in the big leagues, so to speak, but his boss isn’t letting him odd easy in his first season.
“I’m really excited about Brad, kind of how he goes about his business, and obviously really invests himself in these guys’ lives. The energy, as of spoke of, is fantastic. Obviously I’m putting the heat on him, too, and yet he’s ready to take it.”
Davis’ expectations of the unit were addressed on the first day he met with his group. His positive energy has been infectious throughout the whole unit. He’s hosted the entire team at his home in Gainesville for meals when he’s been permitted and that bond is something that has grown and matriculated into the minds of the players.
They’ll go to Outback Steakhouse. They’ve played paintball, gone to the gun range and gone fishing.
“I’m a big fisherman,” McCoy said of an offseason catfishing trip the team took. “Then we went back and just fried them up that night, so we got to have fun and fish and eat.”
The trips are fun in themselves, sharing time with teammates is great but the time spent together and what the guys talk about is more important than what they’re eating or what they’re doing.
“We go on these outings and talk to each other about regular stuff. I talk to Jawaan about his parents, his family, where he comes from. It’s all about getting to know each other and then saying, you know what this guy cares about me not just the football, but he cares about my life, my school, my personal life, whatever I am going through personally, not on the field,” McCoy said. “I feel like when you don’t do team-bonding activities you kind of don’t know what everybody else’s agenda is. I feel like once you have these activities you know each person is, you know T.J. is this type of person and Tyler is this kind of person. You get to know this person on an intellectual level and not just football, but also a personal level. And that makes the bond tighter.”
The line knows they’ve been the butt of jokes for years. They’re tired of the jokes. They’ve made not of what people on the outside think of them and it’s brought them closer together. The new attitude instilled by Davis in the spring carried over throughout the offseason and the internal optimism of the unit comes from the bonds they’ve created the past four months.
“Most people was bashing us for the last two years since I’ve been here,” starting left tackle Martez Ivey said. “Now they think we’re the strong point of the offense and we’re supposed to carry the load. We’re not going to shock ourselves. We know what we’ve got to do.”