The mere thought of last year dredges up bad memories that cornerback Wondy Pierre-Louis would rather bury forever. The 2007 season was on-the-job training for Pierre-Louis and that combination of mostly freshmen and sophomores who had to fill the rather large shoes of a Florida defense that held Ohio State to a mere 82 total yards in the 2006 BCS National Championship Game. In the Southeastern Conference where the frail are routinely eaten alive, learning as you go is a recipe for disaster.
The Gators went from the defense in the SEC to the worst in one season. How deep the Gators had plunged was never more evident than the Capital One Bowl where Michigan’s offense steamrolled Florida. Whatever plays the Michigan offensive coordinator dialed up in the booth worked like a charm on the field as the Wolverines put a sour ending on the Florida season.
Florida’s inability to get Michigan’s offense off the field was a microcosm of the entire season.
“It was embarrassing man,” said Pierre-Louis, who started all 13 games at cornerback last season. “That was a bad year.”
It was particularly embarrassing for Florida’s young cornerbacks. Wondy Pierre-Louis, who only learned to play football four years before when he came to Florida from Haiti, and Joe Haden, recruited to Florida as a wide receiver after an All-American prep career as a quarterback, had never started a college game before the season began. They spent so much of last season backpedaling that they could have earned a spot on the US Postal Service team that won the Tour de France.
The memories of last season have begun to fade for both Haden and Pierre-Louis thanks to a year of maturity and the injection of enthusiasm brought to the cornerback position by Coach Vance Bedford, who was the secondary coach at Michigan last year.
Bedford, who has been a defensive coordinator at the college level and an NFL secondary coach, is best known for coaching Charles Woodson at Michigan. Woodson is the only defensive player to ever win the Heisman Trophy. Beford brought credentials to Florida that immediately got the attention of all the corners.
“He played this position, he coached the position and he also coached in the league [NFL] so he has a lot of experience,” said Pierre-Louis, a junior who was a special teams demon on Florida’s national championship team of 2006.
Bedford’s greatest contribution has been to lift the confidence of both Pierre-Louis and Haden. They ended last season wondering which way was up. They take the field this season believing there isn’t a wide receiver that they can’t shut down.
The transformation from uncertainty to confidence began back in March.
“It was spring ball when we got coach Bedford,” said Haden, who says that he is playing with “confidence and knowing what’s going on before it happens.”
Haden is a sophomore who has started all 15 games of his Florida career. In the first 13 games, third and three or fourth and two for the Florida offense meant a lot of prayers that Tim Tebow would convert so the defense didn’t have to go back on the field.
Third and three or fourth and two this year? No problem.
“If the offense has it fourth down and two it’s okay if you punt because we’re going to come out there and get the ball right back,” said Haden.
The Gators have held Hawaii and Miami to 381 COMBINED yards in the first two games of 2008. In 2007, the Gators gave up an AVERAGE of 361.8 yards per game. Through two games, Florida has surrendered only 13 total points. Last year, the Gators gave up 25.1 per game.
Against Miami, Florida’s defense turned in a performance reminiscent of the dominating 2006 defense. Miami never penetrated Florida’s 30-yard-line for the entire game and in the second half, the Hurricanes never crossed into Florida’s territory. Miami managed 89 passing yards and 61 rushing yards for the entire game.
Miami’s lack of productivity came as no shock to Haden.
“We knew we could do it the whole time,” he said. “We’d been working on it so it wasn’t really a surprise to us. It wasn’t a shock.
Pierre-Louis says the Gators play reflects maturity, more focus and changed practice habits.
“We’re older and we see what happened last year when we were playing around in practice so we just have more focus and we practice harder,” said Pierre-Louis, who adds that the secret to his own success this year is “more focus.”
Last year Pierre-Louis was uptight and playing scared. This year, he’s completely relaxed.
“I feel more comfortable on the field,” he said. “I feel better. I know what I’m doing. I’m ready to execute it.”
Haden said the corners play tighter coverage but still, the goal is to keep the receiver in front of them. They know they don’t have to give as much cushion as last year because they have great confidence in sophomore safeties Major Wright and Ahmad Black, who are ready to step in and erase any mistake a corner might make.
In game one against Hawaii, Black intercepted two passes, running one back 80 yards for a touchdown, while Wright picked off one pass, running it back 32 yards for a score. Wright was the starter at free safety last year while Black struggled at corner. Moved back to his natural position of safety in the spring, Black has found a home and he and Wright have become Florida’s version of Butch and Sundance, a couple of thieves ready to steal any pass that comes their way.
“We always had confidence in Major Wright and now Ahmad is playing so consistent you can’t help but gain trust in him,” said Haden.
That confidence has spread faster than a bad cold in a first grade class among Florida’s secondary. They are playing with abandon, making the big plays and the hard hits.
“We know that if everybody does their job nobody is going to march the ball down the field on us,” said Haden.
Every day in practice, they learn from Bedford, who constantly reminds them about Charles Woodson, who Pierre-Louis says is “just another people.” Wondy says he doesn’t know all that much about Woodson, whose Heisman year was 1997.
“I was in Haiti,” said Pierre-Louis. “I don’t know anything.”
Wondy does know that Woodson has gone on to be a star in the NFL, however, and that gets his attention.
“If he can coach Charles Woodson to make it, then he can coach us,” said Pierre-Louis.