When Brandon James catches his first kickoff at Commonwealth Stadium in Lexington on Saturday, he’ll have the chance to break to break the all-time SEC record for kick return yardage, which belongs to former Kentucky All-American Derek Abney. If James gets the record Saturday it will be on the same field where Abney used to terrorize opponents and that makes it all the sweeter for James, who has a chance to wipe out several SEC records this season.
“It’d be real good,” James said of potentially breaking the record at Kentucky. “Actually we’re just trying to come out and get a good return to put our team is good position, but if we’re going to break the record, that’d be a good place to do it.”
James currently sits 15 yards shy of tying the SEC return yards record, so it’s likely the record will fall during his first kick return on Saturday. His 3,343 have come via 1,145 punt return yards and 2,198 on kickoff returns.
As good as those numbers are, they could be much better but James has had a few touchdowns and several long returns nullified because of penalties. And then there is the punt block factor. The Gators are one of the best in the country at blocking punts so when it’s an all-out jailbreak to get to the punter, James is a one-man gang back there. With no blockers, it’s all up to him to make people miss to zig and zag his way for a few hard-earned yards.
“Sometimes I’ll just look up and look down to see how close they are,” James said. “If we’re trying to block it, I know no one is blocking, but I’ll still try to get some positive yards for us. Most of the times they do their job of getting in the coverage lanes, so I’ve just got to fair catch it.”
While the Florida special teams unit may hurt James’ stats sometimes, they also can benefit him. The opposing team respects the Gators’ ability to block punts so much, that they will sometimes drop extra blockers into the backfield instead of gunners chasing after James. This gives the Florida blockers fewer people to block initially, opening up wider gaps for James to run through.
“It helps me a lot because they’re focused on our guys trying to block the punt, so they’re going to drift back to make sure they get the punt off, their coverage lanes aren’t as tight and they’re not coming down the field as fast,” James said. “I get a little room to catch the ball and pick some seams to hit.”
James made his reputation as a freshman and the fear factor has only grown to the point that it’s rare that an opponent will kick to him. He’s gotten used to rugby style punts that are low line drives designed to bounce and roll and directional punts that go out of bounds. That’s the strategy Tennessee used last Saturday and who could blame them? James ran a punt back for a touchdown against the Vols in both 2007 and 2008.
“Last week was real frustrating because I just felt like they were trying to keep it away from me,” James said. “I didn’t really get a chance. For the year, I’m not really frustrated because I know as long as I settle down and be patient, it’ll come.”
The rugby style kicks are difficult to judge because the football doesn’t always take a clean bounce. James has to concentrate on a ball that may take a strange hop with six or seven opponents running at him hard so he has to maintain his focus and make a decision in split second.
“Should I be aggressive or just sit back and let it keep bouncing?” James said of what goes through his head while watching a punt bounce to him. “You’ve got to be aggressive, but at the same time you’ve got to be patient because you don’t want to put your team in a bad situation with bad field position.”
On the long, booming punts, James admits he has always been a risk taker. Sometimes he’ll field punts inside the ten yard line or with defenders closing quickly, but he just wants to make big plays. The negatives weigh into his mind and he has learned to become more conservative, but James knows the rules that effect his decisions.
“They have to let you catch the ball, so I feel like if a guy is close, he has to let me catch it and can’t really get a big hit anyway,” James said. “I’ll make a fair catch when it’s needed.”
This weekend also offers James and his senior class the opportunity to leave Florida without ever losing to Kentucky. This isn’t huge to James, who knows about beating conference rivals while in school.
James and his St. Augustine High School teammates actually went 4-0 in his career against Tim Tebow and Nease High School. James said it was a topic of conversation early in their careers, but it has died down recently. That is, until someone else talks about it.
“I just let other people bring it up,” James said. “They’ll ask me and I’ll say for them to just ask Tim.”