It was a simple toss sweep at the goal line on this sunny January afternoon in 2006. The ball was spotted at the two-yard line and the play was designed for Chris “Beanie” Wells to show what happens when 230 pounds of power smells touchdown. Wells might have smelled touchdown when the play began but he needed some smelling salts when it was over. Wells no sooner squared his shoulders to the goal line than he had a near out of body experience courtesy of Mr. Spikes.
The impact of the hit knocked Wells off his feet. Brandon Spikes buried his helmet in Wells’ chest and drove him to the ground. The air rushing from Wells’ lungs echoed off the concrete seats of 6,500 seat Southside ISD Stadium. Spikes jumped to his feet, surrounded by players from both sides of the ball. Wells remained on the turf, trying to shake the cobwebs. It was obvious he had never been hit that hard.
Spikes walked over to Wells and helped him up. Wells tried to follow Spikes into the defensive huddle and Spikes not once, but twice pointed him to the other side of the line where the offense was waiting for him.
“That’s what I do,” said Spikes later that afternoon after practice was over for the East team at the U.S. Army All-American Bowl. “I hit people and they go down.”
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Three days later, Mr. Spikes announced his intention to play college football for the Florida Gators, joining already committed U.S. Army All-Americans Tim Tebow, Percy Harvin, Carl Johnson, Corey Hobbs, Jared Fayson and Jamar Hornsby in what most experts would call the number one recruiting class in the country. Spikes put a little suspense into the announcement, putting on a Florida ball cap instead of an Alabama cap midway through the Saturday game at the Alamo Dome, but the decision to be a Gator had been made long before.
During a visit to Alabama on the same weekend that Tebow was in Tuscaloosa, Spikes decided that wherever Tebow went, he was going, too.
Tebow, Spikes and Harvin were the headliners of that class — Tebow the best quarterback in the country; Spikes the best linebacker; Harvin the best wide receiver — and they shared the desire of leading the Florida Gators to a national championship. They knew when they committed to the Gators that they were coming to a team that plenty of the necessary pieces to win it all and skilled veterans on the depth chart ahead of them.
Tebow came to Florida knowing fully well that Chris Leak was a three-year starter at quarterback. Spikes knew that Brandon Siler he had two-year starter ahead of him at middle linebacker. Harvin was well aware that Dallas Baker and Jemalle Cornelius were not only entrenched at wide receiver but Meyer’s kind of guys, fully invested in the football program. They weren’t going anywhere and the last thing they were worried about was losing their job to some hotshot rookie.
This is where Tebow, Spikes and Harvin endeared themselves to Urban Meyer. They weren’t worried about the depth chart and they knew they would have to compete for any playing time they got. None of them were asking about early playing time.
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If you follow recruiting, this is the time of year when the catch phrase of the day is “early playing time.” Over the next three weeks, you’ll hear those words until you’re sick of them. High school kids who have proven absolutely nothing at the next level will come back from visits talking about how they talked with coach so and so about early playing time and wanted a detailed plan about how they were going to be prominently used as true freshmen. The players that are the most selfish or insecure will fall for that line every single time.
The confident kids — the ones like Tebow, Spikes, Harvin and even Ocala’s Johnny Brantley, who chose Florida even though he knew he might have to sit three years behind Tebow — don’t worry about playing time. They figure that if the program is the type that wins championships, there are talented players already on the depth chart.
That doesn’t stop opposing coaches from hammering away with talk that begins with “early playing time” and gravitates to backhanded ways of saying “you’re good enough to play here but are you good enough to play at Florida?”
Are you good enough to play at Florida? That is the new catch phrase wherever the Gators are recruiting these days. Not many opposing coaches have that built-in Florida advantage like incredible weather and fewer still can compete with r the fact Meyer and the Gators have won 44 games, two SEC championships, two national championships, produced a Heisman Trophy winning quarterback and graduated players at the highest rate of any Florida coach since Ray Graves (97 percent over a 10-year career) all in the last four years.
So, if you can’t beat Meyer, then sow seeds of doubt.
“What we’re hearing now is ‘you can’t play there because there are too many players’ and the one thing about it, when we recruited Percy Harvin not one time did he ask me how many receivers did we have,” said Meyer in Miami a couple of weeks ago when the Gators were preparing to beat Oklahoma for their second national championship in the last three years. “(Tim) Tebow wasn’t concerned who the other quarterbacks were.”
Meyer doesn’t have to counter with talk about playing time. Instead he can offer a chance to compete against the best players in the country and instead of the Capital One or Champs Sports or Emerald Nuts bowls, he can offer a shot at winning national championships. That doesn’t always work, however.
“There are some players that would rather go somewhere and start and go to bad bowl games and not play in a game like this [BCS National Championship Game],” said Meyer in Miami. “There are other players that would like to go to an Oklahoma or a USC [or a Florida]. Those are the kind of players we like.”
In three weeks, it’s National Signing Day and another recruiting season will come to an end. It will be somewhat of an upset if the Gators land a class that isn’t ranked in the top five nationally. Meyer will probably sign 21-22 players and his hook will be all of Florida’s intangibles — weather, facilities, academics — combined with championships and a chance to compete for playing time against kids that already know what it’s like to win two of the last three national championships.
The kids that are filled with doubt will certainly sign somewhere other than Florida. If you don’t have a measure of confidence and a willingness to compete, then Florida is the last place you want to be. Now, not every kid that signs somewhere else is filled with doubt or “all about me” but one thing for certain, Meyer’s fifth recruiting class will be loaded up with players that know their work is cut out for them from day one.
It was good enough for Tebow, Spikes and Harvin. It will be good enough for the recruiting class of 2009.