Seven Florida Gators players were suspended for the first game of the season, but no name on that list was more surprising than Cece Jefferson.
The senior defensive end seemed to be the definition of class and character over his first three years at Florida, but he let his academics slip, which led to him not only missing the first game of his final season, but the first two.
Dan Mullen and his coaching staff are working to rebuild the culture of the program, and that means cracking down on a lot of things players may have gotten away with in the past. Jefferson understood he made a mistake, and now all that’s left to do is learn from it.
“That’s the thing, those first two were home games,” he said. “You’ve gotta cherish every moment you get to run out that tunnel and enter The Swamp. So, it hurt. It hurt me pretty bad. I dropped the ball a little bit with my grades, but I’m looking past that. And now, you know, I’m getting better every day as a person and contributing to my team with what time I have left.”
He regretted it the most when he had to watch from the sidelines as the Gators fell to Kentucky for the first time in 31 years.
The Wildcats ran the ball all over Florida’s defense that night, and Jefferson knew he could have done something to stop it, or at least been there to take it on the chin with his brothers.
“I wanted to sneak and put my uniform on and get back out there that night, man,” Jefferson said. “It definitely hurt me knowing that I could’ve went out there and made a difference … Y’all are gonna make me cry. It definitely hurt me a lot. It’s just, like I said, knowing I could’ve made a difference in that game, just my presence. Not being out there really killed me and I let my teammates down. That’s what hurt me the most.”
Jefferson said he could see the disappointment in the faces of his teammates when he had to break it to them that he would not be on the field to start the season.
He spent many nights crying and agonizing over putting himself and his team in that situation. He has since apologized to the team for his actions, and hopes that it will at least serve as a lesson to some of the other guys to take their schoolwork more seriously.
“You’ve gotta be accountable in every situation,” Jefferson said. “That’s just a part of being a man, and that’s what this game teaches you. You’ve gotta be accountable, you’ve gotta take care of your business, you’ve gotta be where you’re supposed to be at. And if you don’t, the results I got are some of the things that can happen to you. So, I definitely think the guys, especially the younger guys, and some of the older guys, will learn from my mistakes.”
Jefferson has been back for the last two games, and the difference it has made for the defense is obvious. With the return of linebacker David Reese from injury last week as well, the Gators appear to be much more stable with two veteran leaders on the field.
With his mistakes in the rearview, Jefferson still has a lot of ball left to play at Florida and beyond. It may have taken losing it for a little while to help him understand how precious every time he gets to put on that uniform truly is.