On the worst days, the smallest things could set him off.
A missed block. An imperfect practice. The steely glare of a position coach.
Emmanuel Moody would make a mistake at a morning football workout and the disappointment would stay with him long after the final air-horn sounded, dictating his mood for the rest of the day — sometimes longer. He’d go into his shell, sulking, paying unintentional homage to his surname.
“Someone would come and try to crack a joke or something, (and) I’m just not talking,” says Moody. “(I’d) be quiet. And they would know something happened with football.”
Truth be told, there has been a lot to dwell on over the past four years.
Since signing with national power Southern California out of high school in 2006, there have been injuries and transfers, untimely fumbles and unfriendly offensive game plans.
And each of the setbacks, certainly, has taken its toll.
But on the eve of his final collegiate season — he’s a redshirt senior listed as the No. 2 running back on the Florida depth chart — Moody insists he’s been able to shake the attitude issues that have hindered him in the past. Experience has taught him that there are things he can control and things he can’t, and his new mantra seems to center on taking life as it comes and finding some inner tranquility amidst the chaos of everyday life.
“That’s easy to say and hard to do,” he admits, smiling. “But I’m just having a better outlook on life right now.”
* * *
Emmanuel Moody arrived at USC in 2006 with the world by the tail.
Coming out of Texas’ Coppell High, you couldn’t find an all-American team that didn’t include his name. He’d rushed for 1,170 yards and 14 touchdowns as a senior and spurned the home-state Longhorns in favor of the Trojans. USC coach Pete Carroll tabbed his prized recruit as “unique”; Steve Smith, the Trojans all-American receiver, said Moody reminded him of a young Reggie Bush.
And for a while, Moody did nothing to dispel the hype. He worked his way into a prominent role as a true freshman. He rushed for 70 yards in his second collegiate game, 130 in his third. Through three games, he was the team’s leading rusher, and he finished the year with 459 rushing yards, second on the team. He was named the Pac-10’s offensive newcomer of the year by The Sporting News and looked to be a vital part of the Trojans’ offense heading into the 2007 season.
Then, he hurt his hamstring, an injury that kept him out most of spring practice.
Then, more and more can’t-miss running back recruits began showing up on the USC campus. At the time, Carroll was stockpiling talented tailbacks; in 2006 and ‘07, for instance, the Trojans signed a total of seven players listed at that position.
The national media took note. Sports Illustrated came to town and snapped a photo of the team’s 10 running backs, ran it as a two-page spread highlighting the team’s vast depth at the position.
To outsiders, it was a novel storyline: The Trojans and their abundance of ball-carrying riches. Inside the program, it wasn’t quite as peachy. With a packed stable of talented options and a limited number of carries to go around, competition ballooned to unimaginable levels. Relationships within the unit chilled.
“You could have just one guy and it could be competitive,” says Moody. “We had 10, you know? We had 10 guys, and it got to the point where (it was), ‘OK, how do we work this out? Who’s getting the reps?’ Because there’s only about 15 running plays that you run each practice, and you got 10 running backs.”
Some days, many of the team’s backs would get a single carry in practice. One.
“Realistically, you couldn’t even compete anymore,” he says. “If you really do the math, you couldn’t really compete.”
Moody shakes his head at the memory, stops himself.
“You can take it from there,” he adds, “I don’t want to go into that …”
* * *
A few days before the start of the ’07 season, Moody made the decision to transfer to Florida, and his goals, admittedly, were simple: Get carries. Generate stats.
“(The Gators) get their playmakers the ball,” he said at the time, explaining his decision to leave USC.
If he had visions of rolling off 1,000-yard seasons in Gainesville, no one could have blamed him. Under head coach Urban Meyer, the Gators had never had a runner like Moody — a back with this combination of speed and size — and the high-profile transfer was met with sizeable expectations from day one.
But after sitting out the ’07 season due to transfer rules, Moody struggled to find his stride.
In 2008, he rushed for 417 yards and a touchdown while playing in 10 games. Last year, he managed 378 yards and three touchdowns. He has carried the ball a total of just 116 times in his Florida career, as a good portion of the team’s ground game went through quarterback Tim Tebow, and after two seasons in Gainesville, he has been unable to match the numbers he accrued as a true freshman in Los Angeles.
Some of it has been bad breaks, events outside his control. He had an ankle injury. Then another. He seems to be perpetually recovering from some kind of ailment.
Some of it — like dwelling on minor mistakes and his sometimes-dark demeanor when things didn’t go his way — wasn’t.
Regardless, the lack of production hasn’t always been easy on him.
Asked recently to pick out his lowest moment over the past few years, he responded, “I felt like I had about six of those moments.”
* * *
There is an air of calm to Emmanuel Moody these days.
He smiles easily, jokes with reporters. After a turbulent career that has seen its share of low-points, he seems intent on doing everything he can to enjoy his final season at Florida.
Blessed with the gift of hindsight, he’s able to acknowledge that he probably didn’t handle some of life’s speed bumps in the best way. He’s not sure if there’s a single moment he can label a turning point, but somewhere along the line, his mindset shifted. He learned to better roll with the punches, to take life as it comes and not waste time and energy dwelling on minor setbacks.
Things that used to keep him up at night he’s now able to shrug off, which, he says, has ultimately made him a better football player.
He attributes his improved outlook to maturity, meanwhile, and when coaches are asked about the player during interviews, the “M” word is usually a prominent theme in their responses.
“You’re talking about a mature kid, a mature kid in Moody,” says running backs coach Stan Drayton. “He’s looking at it trying to make his whole responsibility at running back in all phases become better, and I love that about that kid.”
The visions of 1,000-yard rushing seasons are gone now, even with Tebow off to the NFL’s Denver Broncos and the team’s coaches vowing to transition back to a more traditional ground game.
This could be a special year for the team’s running backs, he acknowledges, but he’s careful to temper his expectations.
“It could be,” he says. “(But) it’ll be our whole unit.”
And at the moment, that seems good enough for him.
“It’s my fifth year and my mindset has changed a lot ever since I was a sophomore and junior,” he says. “I’m to the point where I’m just going to handle what I can handle and not think about (whether) I’m going to be a 1,000-yard rusher or focus on some goals that are far ahead. I’m just focused on taking each day at a time and having an even-keel attitude every day and, no matter what happens, just have a smile on your face.”
— Gator Country reporter Dugan Arnett can be reached at dugan@gatorcountry.com. You can also follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/duganarnett