Jon Bostic answers the questions thoughtfully and with a smile. In the years to come he might grow weary of the post-game interview process but for this particular moment he is enjoying the never-ending stream of questions and speaking into more microphones and recorders than he’s probably seen at any one moment in his very young life.
He has just played in his first game in The Swamp before a crowd announced at 65,000. The next time he runs out of the tunnel onto the playing field, the crowd will be 90,000 or more and the decibel level will be something akin to a 747 taking off. He will have a few months to prepare for what it will be like on September 5 when he plays his first official game, but he will also have those months to remember what he did on April 18 at the Orange and Blue Game.
In case you missed it, Jon Bostic played middle linebacker with what passed for the number one defense. The starters from the defense that shut down Oklahoma’s vaunted offense in the BCS National Championship Game in Miami back in January got the day off so Jon Bostic, who played high school football in Palm Beach County last year, ran out on the field and played like someone who belonged.
If there were jitters, he didn’t show it either on the field or in the way he handled the horde of writers, radio and television people that surrounded him in the post-game media room. On the field, he played alert and with the poise of a veteran that has been there and done that many times before. He handled the press with the kind of confidence normally reserved for players who have been starters for quite some time.
He had four tackles and never once looked dazed and confused. A lot of players lose any semblance of focus when they run out of the tunnel the first time and they see more people in the stands at one time than probably attended all their high school games combined.
Not Bostic.
“I really just tried to ignore that,” he said. “Just zone in and do my job is what I wanted to do.”
For freshmen linebackers, it is usually easier to make plays against the run. That’s fairly instinctive. Dropping into coverage is often where the adventure begins. In high school it’s usually a three or four step drop at the most. At the collegiate level, the receivers are faster and the routes are crisper. Sometimes the drops are 10 yards or more and getting to the right spot in the zone can be a bit tricky.
On his first serious test, Bostic came up with perhaps the defensive play of the game. Tim Tebow tried to throw a deep bender route into the soft spot of the zone behind the linebackers and in front of the safeties. Over the course of three years, Tebow has been intercepted only nine times in 681 attempts so this is a throw he makes 99 percent of the time.
He might have made it this time, too, except that Bostic made the right read, the right drop and then surprised himself. He saw Tebow’s throw, timed his jump and got as high as he could.
Higher, actually, than he thought he could. He didn’t get the interception, but he created it by tipping the ball to safety Dorian Munroe, who made the pick and returned the ball 20 yards to set up a touchdown.
The only surprise to Bostic on the play was that he thought he should have picked the ball off himself instead of just creating a tipped ball for a teammate to grab.
“Actually, I could have gotten the interception,” Bostic said. “I didn’t actually didn’t think I was going to jump that high and I actually got both hands on it. I tipped it up and as soon as I tipped it up, I turned around and saw D-Mo pick it off.”
On that play, Bostic got a chance to show off the ball hawking skills he learned as a US Army All-American safety at Palm Beach Central in Wellington. He played a lot of positions on both sides of the ball in high school. He was the typical best athlete on the team which meant he plugged the gap wherever he was needed.
He was a 215-pound safety as a senior back in Wellington. He enrolled at Florida in January and by the time Mickey Marotti got through with him in the weight room, he showed up for spring practice as a rock-solid 235, looking every bit the part of a middle linebacker and nothing at all like a safety.
And even though he loved playing safety, he found middle linebacker has its perqs.
“At safety I really like the contact back there,” he said. “Just move me up in the box just means I can be in the action a lot more.”
Getting in the action at linebacker meant learning a brand new position, new terminology and getting used to a game that’s played at a much faster pace than anything he could have imagined in high school. If there was any tendency to come in with the big head based on his high school laurels, a position change brought him right back down to earth.
His expectations when spring practice began were to make every day count by absorbing as much as he could.
“My thoughts coming in were to learn as much as I can in my first year,” Bostic said. “If I have to redshirt, redshirt. Basically my thoughts were come in and learn as much as I can.”
Learning came easily and adjusting to a new position turned out to be the least of his concerns. Perhaps the fact that he played quarterback, tailback, wide receiver and corner in high school in addition to safety groomed him for making changes.
Florida’s coaches discovered that they didn’t have to tell him how to do something twice.
“When I watch something I can turn around and do it the very next play,” he said almost modestly.
It was evident from the first day of contact that he had what it takes to play college football. By the time Saturday’s Orange and Blue Game rolled around, it was evident that he has the skills and instincts not only to play college football but to excel.
He has the instincts and potential to be the successor to Brandon Spikes, Florida’s All-American middle linebacker. There is an interesting parallel here. Spikes came to Florida as a US Army All-American middle linebacker. He spent his first year apprenticing under Brandon Siler, the leader of a defense that shut down Ohio State in the BCS National Championship Game. Spikes spent most of that season on special teams and making the most of limited opportunities in big time situations.
In the national championship game, Spikes was on the field along side Siler on a critical fourth and one in the second quarter. Steve Harris and Ray McDonald blew up Ohio State’s offensive line and Earl Everett made the initial contact on Beanie Wells while Siler and Spikes were there to make sure there was no second effort surge.
There is no guarantee that Jon Bostic will get a chance to be on the field side by side with Spikes in a critical situation in a national championship game but Bostic is a US Army All-American who has those same Spikes search and destroy instincts that create an interesting dilemma for Florida coach Urban Meyer.
Bostic might be so good that he has to get him on the field immediately.
“He’s playing so the redshirt is gone,” said Meyer in his post-Orange and Blue Game remarks. “Now he’s battling for a starting spot at Florida. Think about that for a minute. We have some decent linebackers.”
And one of those decent linebackers is Jon Bostic. Remember that name. You’re going to hear it a lot in the next few years.