FORT LAUDERDALE — Ahmad Black never lost confidence. He heard all the talk, all the unkind words that he couldn’t play at this level and that he was a wasted scholarship. Even Urban Meyer wondered if this wasn’t a classic recruiting mistake, a kid perhaps who had reached his peak as a high school senior that would never get better at the collegiate level.
All that did was make Black more determined than ever to prove his doubters wrong.
“I just needed to show the coaches I can do it, that all I needed is a chance,” says Black, who made second team All-Southeastern Conference as a safety in 2008. Black, a 5-9, 190-pound sophomore, led the Gators in interceptions with six, taking two to the house.
Those are big time numbers, indicative of a player with a real nose for the football. So why was everyone down on him in 2007?
It has everything to do with being the proverbial fish out of water. Black spent his freshman year trying to play cornerback, the position that he seemed most suited for because of his size (he was 175 at the time). A safety in high school at Lakeland, where he was a team leader that helped the Dreadnaughts win 45 straight games, three state championships and two national championships, Black never adjusted to the position switch.
After a miserable year where his only chance to see the field was on special teams, Black got his break in the spring when coaches gave him a shot at safety. From the first day of spring practice, Black looked like a natural. He made plays on the ball. He was rarely out of position to make tackles. He was one of the surprise players of spring practice.
He knew he was going to see the field when the Gators began practice in earnest in August, but when junior Dorian Munroe went down with an ACL injury a couple of days into practice, the door was wide open for Black to start and he didn’t disappoint. He picked off two passes in the season opener against Hawaii, taking one all the way back for a touchdown.
Over the course of Florida’s next 12 games, Black became Florida’s rock solid last line of defense and earned a reputation as the Gators’ most dependable tackler.
When he looks back on a frustrating freshman year, Black says he’s partly to blame for the non-productive year.
“I kind of came here with the mindset that this is going to be like high school and it’s a totally different ball game,” he said.
The attitude adjusted and he got a new lease on life with the position change. Now he’s one of Florida’s leaders and he will have to play a big part in the defensive scheme if the Gators are to at least slow down an Oklahoma offensive juggernaut that lit up scoreboards for an NCAA-record 702 points, an average of 54 points per game. Oklahoma set another NCAA record by scoring 60 or more points in each of its final five games.
When Black looks at Oklahoma on film he sees a complete offensive package.
“They’re well coached and they have players that know what they’re doing,” he said. “They’re quick, they’re fast and they’re explosive. All that leads to a good offense.”
The triggerman for the Sooners is quarterback Sam Bradford, who has thrown for 84 touchdowns in two years on the job including 48 during his Heisman campaign this year. Oklahoma produced two 1,000-yard rushers and a whole host of talented wide receivers that get downfield.
“They have a great group of running backs, great group of wide receivers and a big offensive line and the Heisman winning quarterback,” said Black. “We can’t take anything away from them. They score 60 a game. We’re going to hope we can contain them.”
In addition to all that talent, the Sooners run their offense at a breakneck pace. They make it difficult to get defensive substitutions in the game due to the speed of their attack, forcing teams to play the same package of players even though there might be mismatches all over the field.
Combatting the tempo is going to be a key if the Gators are to slow the Sooners down.
“We’re going to have to make sure we get lined up, get our coverages, get our signals in and be ready,” said Black.
A year ago, the Florida defense would have had Oklahoma licking its chops for a shot at throwing the ball all over the yard. It’s a much different Florida defense this year and that had its origins in last year’s Capital One Bowl loss to Michigan.
“We didn’t have a good bowl game last year and a lot of people threw the ball around on us,” said Black. “We had to come in and stop that. We got embarrassed a lot last year … it was embarrassing, especially the bowl game. We had to get better.”
The Gators definitely got better. From a team that couldn’t stop anyone last year, the Gators are now the ninth-rated defense in Division I and they’re fifth nationally in scoring defense.
Even with that kind of improvement, Black doesn’t think the Gators are anywhere close to reaching their peak.
“We have to keep getting better,” he said. “We have one more game. We can’t stop here. We had a long offseason and a long spring to try to get back where we need to be. I think we’re almost there but we haven’t arrived yet.”
And, as much as Ahmad Black has improved — it’s quite a change to go from a forgotten member of the secondary to second team All-SEC in one season — he doesn’t begin to think he’s anywhere close to where he wants to be.
He’s not a big talker and he never has been comfortable talking about himself. He just goes about doing his job in the same manner every single day. That means playing smart and playing with confidence.
If there is one lifeline that pulled him through even in the dark days when he was hearing all the talk that he was a wasted scholarship it is that supreme confidence he has in himself.
“I never lost confidence,” he said. “You never lose confidence.”