Nicknames are earned not given. One cannot bestow a nickname on themselves it’s given by an act or a trait and once a nickname sticks you’re stuck with it, for better or for worse.
Donovan Stiner was largely unknown in 2017. He hails from Houston, Texas — not quite in Florida’s normal recruiting footprint. He played in 11 games in 2017 but mostly on special teams where he recorded just nine tackles. This season Stiner has played in every game. He had a career-high eight tackles against Kentucky but was still largely unknown.
He’s no longer unknown.
On the final play last Saturday in Starkville Todd Grantham dialed up pressure that called for Stiner, from his safety position, to blitz. What happened next was a biblical parting of the seas allowing Stiner to run through the A gap with a 20-yard head start. Stiner plowed through quarterback Nick Fitzgerald to force a turnover on downs and end the game. The play has blown up on social media, with Florida even getting in on the action with this tweet overlaid with old NCAA Football 14 graphics. But a tweet sent out from the personal account of Florida’s social media manager, Bruce Floyd, really gave Stiner a name.
Floyd tweeted the video of Stiner’s sack with audio from the Adam Sandler movie The Waterboy. The video has more than 120,000 views and has given Stiner the nickname, “Waterboy.”
That final @GatorsFB tackle, but with audio from “The Waterboy”. #GoGators pic.twitter.com/wk4ONzGXLJ
— Bruce Floyd (@brucefloyd) September 30, 2018
“It blew up on social media,” linebacker Rayshad Jackson said. “We all found it fun. I’ve been calling him Waterboy too.”
Stiner says he’s watched the highlight more than 100 times, pretty much any time he comes across it he’ll watch it a few more. It’s his first sack at Florida and couldn’t have come in a bigger spot, so that’s understandable. He’s also taking the new nickname in stride.
“I kinda brush it off,” he said. “It’s funny though, it’s funny.”
The call itself was gutsy. The situation was 4th and 10 with 1:06 left to play. The Bulldogs were down seven points, needed a first down to keep the drive going and needed to score. Grantham brought eight players on a blitz. It’s an obvious passing down and he’s bringing more than Mississippi State can block, but there are only three Gators in coverage. It could have ended much differently.
“They actually had a wide-open guy down field, so if he would have actually threw the ball instead of panicking, I don’t know we’d probably still be playing right now,” defensive lineman T.J. Slaton said.
The architect of the play and the guy with the gull to call it doesn’t see it as a risk, however. To Grantham it was a calculated decision based on the very situation that was spelled out above.
“Fourth downs are a stick element deal. Based upon the call, there are no routes against that. Meaning we knew the down-and-distance,” Grantham explained. “It was a six-man protection. You’re not going to get 10 yards on that call so either the ball is coming out quick on the slant, which you tackle, the game’s over. Or it’s a fade ball and I’ve already got depth and vision on the play. I want to win the game. There’s really no other call.”
Dan Mullen joked after the game that he’s learned to “just shut up” in situations like that and trust the guys he hired to do the jobs they were hired to do.
There was another issue that could have come up. With Stiner running free and the way targeting is being called so inconsistently that was an issue. Stiner, somehow in a fleeting moment, had the wherewithal to consider targeting. Florida already had cornerback Trey Dean ejected in the first quarter of that game for targeting and a targeting call on that play would have resulted in a Mississippi State first down and new life.
“I knew I kept my head up and I kinda put it to the side a little bit and I didn’t launch at him or anything,” Stiner said. “I just ran through him so I knew it wasn’t targeting.”
“owadays with targeting, he slid his head and made sure he was striking the guy in the target zone below the shoulder and not in the neck and head area,” said Grantham. “That way, it could not be up for debate on something like that. I felt they executed, he did a really good job of finishing it off and we won the game.”
Stiner is fourth on the team with 22 tackles this season. He’s earning more reps and making a name for himself. For now he’ll accept the new nickname “Waterboy” and wait for another opportunity to re-brand himself.