It’s been a while since the Florida receiving corps has been in such dire straits. The last time the Gators had a similar lack of playmakers was in 2005, Urban Meyer’s first year as head coach and Billy Gonzales’ first year as wide receivers coach.
In 2005, Andre Caldwell missed the rest of the season after breaking his leg on a kickoff return against Tennessee. Jemalle Cornelius limped through the season on a badly sprained ankle, while a broken rib slowed Dallas Baker.
There were even some times during the 2005 season when the receiving depth chart was so thin that Meyer and Gonzales employed fullback Billy Latsko in the slot.
“I’ll take Billy right now,” Gonzales said with a smile after Sunday night’s practice. “Now you’re bringing back memories.”
Those memories are something Gonzales hoped he never would have to relive.
Now, however, Gonzales is dealing with a very similar situation.
Andre Debose, the freshman from Class 6A champion Seminole who was expected to step in and play to relieve the Gators some of the pain of losing Percy Harvin a year early to the National Football League, is out for the season with a torn hamstring tendon that required surgery. Redshirt sophomore Deonte Thompson, who caught a pair of touchdowns against Troy, missed Saturday’s game against Tennessee with the same hamstring injury he suffered on the last of those scoring receptions. Senior Carl Moore has been dealing with a back issue since the start of preseason camp, while Paul Wilson broke his foot for the second time in 11 months, causing doctors to recommend he give up football.
During Sunday night’s practice, seniors David Nelson and Riley Cooper did not participate because they were banged up in Saturday’s 23-13 victory over Tennessee. Cooper had a pinched nerve in his back early in the contest that he almost was removed from the game.
Gonzales came into fall camp with 12 scholarship wide receivers, and he had only six of them work out Sunday night. Three of them—Omarius Hines, Freddie Hammond Jr. and T.J. Lawrence—are being groomed to join the mix.
The lack of health was apparent on the field Saturday. The Gators longest passing play was for 18 yards, causing some doubts to arise about the Florida passing game. The coaches often talk about explosive plays, which they describe as plays gaining 20 or more yards, and how they drive the offense. The Gators offense tallied a total of two explosive plays on Saturday, coming on two separate runs by running backs Jeff Demps and Emmanuel Moody.
Physical injuries have hurt the Gators and now it’s the H1N1 swine flu bug that is going through the team the last week. The Florida coaches and trainers are doing their best to control it.
“It’s always a concern,” Gonzales said. “You’ve got guys who were sick. Jeff Demps was as sick as a dog on game day. Every meeting room has disinfectant. Every time we sit down at dinner, there’s disinfectant being passed around. Everybody is trying to drink fluids and stay healthy, but there are always concerns. It changes the game plan. If Aaron (Hernandez) didn’t go on Saturday, we stayed up Friday night trying to figure out what we were going to do, moving personnel groupings around. It swings a different guy in who hasn’t played as much who would have been starting for us on the perimeter.”
Despite the lack of explosion from the Florida wide receivers, Gonzales was still happy with what he saw. His starting three wide receivers graded out as champions for the game, and the wide receivers coach thought he got a satisfactory effort from his players.
“David, Riley and BJ (Brandon James) all graded out champions for me this week, so I’m proud of those guys,” Gonzales said. “They did their job and did what they were supposed to do. Obviously we want to make big plays. We didn’t get into the end zone and we always talk about the big plays. We didn’t have any as a group.”
The fact that Florida had three wide receivers grade out as champions in a game where quarterback Tim Tebow only threw for 115 yards may come as a surprise. But Gonzales doesn’t grade the same way fans look at the game. His priority is watching the effort and concentration of his players. If they get the ball, they make plays. If not, they’re doing their best to block and create big plays for their teammates.
“You grade whether they did their job,” Gonzales said. “All three of them did their job. They have all graded out well over the past three weeks. They played some 60-plus plays and there were a lot of them that were running plays and they better be blocking. They all know that. When their number is called in a practice or game, they better make the play if it’s going to them. If not, they’re responsible to block on the perimeter and they did a good job this week. We talk about being the best blockers in the country all the time.”
The Florida wide receiving corps was lessened by the injury to Thompson. He was listed as probable all week, and the Florida coaches expected him to be able to play, but his pregame workouts did not respond as they expected and he was held out.
“Deonte is a competitor and wanted to play, but our responsibility is to take care of our players too,” Gonzales said. “As bad as we want him out there to win, at the same time, I want to make sure he’s healthy. To have him out there going at 60 percent speed, I’d rather have a guy out there who is 100 percent speed that knows what he’s doing. We’ve got guys capable of that. We just need these young guys to keep pushing and developing.
“The only way you get better and play at Florida, and it’s never changed, is you’ve got to make plays in practice. The word ‘gamer,’ we don’t believe in that here. You’ve got to make the plays over, over and over in practice. Over the past few years, those guys were veteran players and they made plays over, over and over in practice. Our upperclassmen right now are doing that. The younger guys need to do that.”
Thompson’s absence took Florida’s best deep threat out of their lineup. His strength allows him to get off the line with ease and his speed helps him pull away, as was evident during the first two games of the season.
While the longest pass the Gators completed was an 18-yard tight end screen to Hernandez, Gonzales wasn’t concerned about not throwing the ball down the field.
“I don’t think it’s as much a vertical passing game,” Gonzales said. “I tell my players this all the time, ‘Players make plays, the play doesn’t make the player.’ You’ve seen plenty of receivers in the past four or five years catch a hitch and take it the distance. Coop caught a little one step and got nine or ten yards on it and that’s what we’re looking for. We always say, when you catch the ball, before you do anything, get four yards and a positive gain for us.”
The Florida offense now turns its attention to a trip to Lexington this Saturday to play the Kentucky Wildcats, another SEC East rival. Gonzales doesn’t know what receivers he will be able to use on the trip, but he should have a better idea after Tuesday’s practice. Monday is the day the Florida coaches lay out a large part of the game plan based on film of the opposition they have seen.
“We’ve just got to figure out what we want to do,” Gonzales said. “That’s something we have on Monday—an opportunity to sit and watch film all day long and evaluate like we did today. We watched film on Kentucky, and it just comes down to putting playmakers in the right spots to make plays.”
Finding those players and keeping them healthy has been the problem.