NEW ORLEANS, LA — The curtain call came with 3:25 left in the game following a 13-yard run up the gut by freshman tailback Mike Gillislee. Florida’s Sugar Bowl win over the Cincinnati Bearcats was in the bag and it was time for the most decorated college football player of all time to say good-bye to adoring Gator fans chanting his name over and over and over again. He hugged Johnny Brantley, the talented sophomore from Ocala who will succeed him as Florida’s quarterback next year, and then he began the slow walk to the sideline. He grinned as he heard “Tebow! Tebow! Tebow!” echo throughout the cavernous Louisiana Superdome and then he gestured back, “I love you!” in sign language.
It has always been about the love for Tim Tebow. For all the records he has set and all the awards he has won, his greatest and lasting legacy will be the people he’s touched along the way. For every win there have been 10 kids in the hospital who needed uplifting from their young hero. For every touchdown pass there have been 100 incarcerated men who needed to hear that God loves them from someone who always understood that if not for the grace of God he could have been in their place. For every pass completion and every rushing yard and every accomplishment, there has always been someone else in need of what Tim Tebow was offering.
“Some people might think it’s because of, you know, we’ve been able to win two national championships or I’ve won a few individual awards or we’ve had some success,” Tebow said Friday night after yet another record-breaking performance. “That really doesn’t have that much to do with it. I mean, I know in a lot of people’s eyes it does. But not in my eyes and not the people I’m around.”
In Tebow’s eyes, it has always been about the personal relationships and the opportunities to spread a message of God’s love and hope to others. He has accomplished all those things while living in a fishbowl while certain elements in the media and society have tried to tear him down. Yet, he’s stood tall and never taller than he did Friday night when he rewrote the record books at the Sugar Bowl.
Tebow saved his best for last, carving up the third-ranked and previously unbeaten Cincinnati Bearcats (12-1) for 31 completions in 35 pass attempts for 482 yards and three touchdowns and rushing for another 51 yards and one more score to lead the fifth-ranked Florida Gators (13-1) to a relatively easy, 51-24, win.
Just 27 days earlier, Tebow was at perhaps the lowest point of his Florida career. He broke down in tears as he knelt on the sideline of the Georgia Dome watching the seconds tick off the clock as Alabama ended Florida’s hopes of a second straight national championship and an undefeated season. As if that weren’t bad enough, there was the turmoil of last weekend when Urban Meyer first announced his resignation as Florida’s football coach for health reasons only to change his mind and instead took a leave of absence one day later. Given the almost father-son relationship between Tebow and Meyer, the past few days had to feel like the weight of the world on Tebow’s young but very broad shoulders.
That should have been a clue that something special was about to happen. Just as he responded in 2008 with “The Promise” following the loss to Ole Miss, Tebow responded on January 1, 2010 with an uplifting performance that offered a measure of hope to a Gator Nation that has been in a mild state of panic these past few days.
“I watched him in the locker room before the game and I knew he was going to play great,” said Mike Pouncey, who spent half the game at right guard and the other half filling in at center for twin brother Maurkice, who spent part of the day in Tulane Hospital being treated for kidney stones. “Tebow’s always kind of quiet before the game but he was kind of in a zone. I’ve seen it before and when he’s in it, you know he’s going to take over.”
Tebow didn’t just take over Friday night. He commanded the entire stage and made the Bearcats his personal whipping boy. Just 27 days earlier, Cincinnati was within a single second of playing Alabama for the national championship. Only an instant replay decision sent Texas to the title game instead of the Bearcats. Cincinnati fans should savor that moment because that might be as close as they’ll ever come to the big time.
Tebow made sure of that. For one night at least, he took away the uncertainty that surrounds Meyer and his health issues by bringing back the glory.
Tebow completed his first 12 passes of the game for 142 yards and a touchdown. By halftime, he already had his first 300-yard game of the season (20-23 for 320 yards and three touchdowns) and the Gators led 30-3. This was almost an audition tape for the National Football League.
Some so-called experts say Tebow can’t play quarterback at the next level. To that Urban Meyer says, “31 of 35, 482 yards, three touchdowns, one of the most efficient quarterbacks ever to play the game. A part of two national championships. He’s a winner, and unless the job description changes at some other level of football, he’s a winner and he’ll win at the next level, too.”
The winning will be remembered — try 48 wins in 55 games during his four years — and so will the touchdowns (88 passing, which ties him with Chris Leak for second on the all-time Florida list; 56 rushing, which further cements his all-time SEC record) but nothing in Tebow’s eyes will surpass the good things that happened and the people he met during his time in Gainesville.
“It’s the people that I’m with, the players that I’m with, the coaches that I’m with … that’s the reason I chose to come to the University of Florida,” he said. “That’s the reason my time at the University of Florida was successful, is because I enjoy going to practice every day. I enjoyed the people I was around. It was like a family away from home, and I loved it. That’s why my time at Florida was successful.”
Ironically, Tim Tebow’s final successful moment as a Florida Gator came on the same stage as the final successful Gator moment of his hero, Danny Wuerffel. Wuerffel won a national championship at this same Louisiana Superdome in his final game as a Gator back in 1996, leading the Gators to a 52-20 win over Florida State. While Tebow didn’t get a chance to win a national championship in his final game, he took the Gator Nation by their bootstraps and lifted them from their month-long funk.
There will be time to deal with the uncertainty in the days and weeks ahead, but for this night, we had Tim Tebow one last time. After accepting the MVP Trophy, he did his traditional victory lap only when he got to the tunnel leading to the locker room he spied others begging, pleading with him to reach out and touch their hands, too. So in one last gesture, one last chance to give back while still in uniform, he prolonged the moment, slapping another 300-400 hands before he disappeared into the locker room for good.
And so four years came to an end. He says he was born a Gator and will always be a Gator but no matter who breaks his records and no matter how many championships are won in the future, there will always be only one Tim Tebow.
He was, is and always will be a Florida Gator.
“I’ve been a Gator my whole life and always will be a Gator,” he said. “So it’s not really saying good‑bye, it’s just moving on to a new chapter, but I’ll still always be a Gator.”