On to the Goal

Andre Debose is reporting to Gainesville for Summer A in a few days and the Gators picked up a commitment from 2010 recruit Solomon Patton earlier this week. But let’s be honest, you can never have enough The Next Percy Harvins.

After signing Debose, do you think that Meyer just leaned back, kicked up his feet and lit a cigar? Hell no! He was immediately back out on the road from Pahokee to Pago Pago looking for more The Next Percy Harvins. That’s what winners do.

So in this week’s edition of Thursday Recrootin’ Roundup, we focus on a 2026 receiver prospect that could be The Next Percy Harvin: Da Next Percy Harvin. Here’s his highlight reel:

Analysis and Scouting Report

Strengths: Shorter than scouts would like, but has a lean, compact build … Is expected to grow … Size makes him elusive in traffic, tacklers often forced to bend over to reach him … Good hands … Able to track and adjust to balls in flight … Quickly opens up hips to transition from bench route to quick curl … Demonstrates strong ability to recite own name and age on-demand.

Weaknesses: Looks shorter on film than his listed 3′2″ … Many of his plays on offense were slip-screens and quick passes with no defenders within frame … Could struggle making transition from neighborhood barbecue to Division I … Tendency to catch balls with his body instead of his hands … Character concerns … Tendency to look at the camera and grin after making a catch instead of turning upfield for additional yardage … In pre-school received a timeout after stealing a Thomas the Tank Engine from classmate … Missed time in 2008 due to a skinned knee and colic.

HT: Swamp Things

Last week, Orson Swindle waxed eloquent on football, life and life as it relates to football. In particular, he talked about the precise moment at which “you realized the game had some kind of parasitic, infectious grip on you that no amount of treatment would undo.” For him it was one of the more gut-wrenching moments in the last 20 years of Gator football:

Painful, yes, but what did we learn? As it turns out, that play was also a textbook example of the Smash Route passing concept, which you may remember from its previous coachporn disection at the hands of Chris a.k.a. Smart Football.

X’s and O’s are a relatively new addition to my football life. I’ve been a college football fan sincelikeforever but only began to focus on its actual machinations about five years ago. That’s why Smart Football is such a service to the community. For those of us who didn’t play but want to know more about the schematic brilliance behind the game, he is a beacon of light in a world full hopelessly inept color commentators.

So even when the examples have dreadfully, horribly awful results, it’s nice to know that we can derive at least some benefit from them. I’ll be studiously watching for examples of the Smash, Shallow-Cross and Levels concetps this fall.

Florida’s already impressive 2010 recruiting class grew by another two names today, and both are wide receivers. Take that, Ben Volin.

First up is Mobile, Alabama product Solomon Patton, a waterbug listed (generously, I imagine) at 5′10″, 175. Patton is on the three/four-star border, #38 overall and a four-star per Rivals and #35 and a three-star according to Scout. And yes, he wants to play the “Position Formerly Occupied by Percy Harvin That Only Percy Can Play” or PFOBPHTOPCP for short.

Video evidence is thusfar scant, but this clip on ESPN.com (no embedding, natch) reveals, well, a 5′10″ waterbug who is a borderline four-star guy. He certainly demonstrated some impressive moves, but not quite in the all-world Harvin/Debose sense of the word. With offers from Alabama, LSU and Florida State, however, there’s no doubt that he’s talented. And with offers from Alabama, LSU and Florida State, it’s also safe to say that this battle might not be over just yet. So stay tuned.

The second announcement today came from Stephen Alli, a 6′5″, 208 receiver with a 36-inch vericle leap and a 4.4 fakefortytime. OK, I’m intrigued, go on…

A few other factoids about Mr. Alli, listed in bullet form for effect:

Stephen Alli, via Rivals

• He’s originally from Canada
• He attends Proctor Academy in Andover, New Hampshire
• His other offers are from Boston College, UConn and… Harvard

So in other words, he’s the type of player that previously existed only in EA’s NCAA Football franchises, where  black guys with five-star ratings would emerge from recruiting hotbeds like Barrow, Alaksa, Polson, Montana or Andonver, New Hampshire. Just like in real life! Proctor Academy may be an even more unlikely place for a bigtime football recruit. Annual tuition? $43,400 if you’re a boarding student. At least that drops to $26,200 if you live off campus… in Andover, New Hampshire… population: 2,190.

His location and complete lack of buzz from the recruiting services juxtaposed against the Florida offer makes him an epic “sleeper” on some kind of previously unheard-of level. But wait… Maybe Florida knows something everyone else doesn’t. Alli participated in a Rivals.com Five-Star Showdown in Stamford, Connecticut earlier this year and measured at a legit 6′5″ and was clocked with legit 40 times of 4.38 and 4.41.

He finished first in the broad jump with an amazing 10-foot-7 jump, six inches farther than the next closest prospect. And in the vertical leap, he took first place honors with a 36-inch leap.

Alli didn’t dominate the one-on-ones but he did show pretty good hands and an ability to adjust to the ball in the air, but clearly his upside is impressive. Alli claims early offers from UConn and Harvard so far.

With those measureables he could have cinder-blocks for hands and still get a few Division I offers, but Florida is his first big-time suitor (Tennessee appears to be the only other to even nibble a bit). Until more evidence bubbles to the surface, this one will remain a bit of a mystery. At least it’s a tantilizing OMGZ RANDY MOSS! mystery.

Well, the “Florida is the new Thug U” story has now been around long enough to be reduced to this: Criticism of the PR response. And when you reach that stage, it really is time to stop talking about the subject, especially since it was mostly ridiculous offseason bluster to begin with.

I respect Dr. Saturday’s opinion, and he certainly wasn’t the first to question Florida’s response. And given that part of it was hilariously lifted directly from the Scared Straight playbook — shuffling players into a ridealong program with Gainesville police — I have to admit that it was a bit overwrought. At least they didn’t decide to go in this direction:

Nah, we’ll leave that part to Tebow.

In all seriousness, I think the issue did warrant a response because, from its outset, it completely lacked context. The column that begat this meme was woefully short on detail. Among the things it missed:

• Actual number of players arrested
• Number of charges dropped
• Analysis of the severity of the crimes
• Thorough comparison to other major football programs and university populations as a whole

The initial round of follow-up attempts wasn’t much better, and things didn’t really come into focus until the Gainesville Sun and Jeremy Fowler, among others, began to confront the bloviating and “faux righteousness” (as Doc Sat put it) with, get this, actual facts. From the beginning, that was half of my objective in writing about the topic.

The other half was to stress that this is not a minor issue, and that is where my opinion departs from that of Mr. Hinton, et al.  I don’t necessarily buy the reasoning that this story was going to go away. Sure, the Gators are not the only college football program with a high arrest total, but they’re the only college football program with a high arrest total and a 2008 BCS trophy. Relax, I don’t mean that in the “THEY HATE US BECAUSE WE WIN!” vein. But if I were part of the Florida braintrust, I’d have been thinking four things:

1. Like it or not (OK, generally we “like”), we’re one of the most visible programs in America.
2. Even if it’s just for public intoxication, someone else is probably going to get arrested in the next six months.
3. The higher the number of incidents, the more likely it is that the “thug” perception becomes its own reality.
4. We better damn sure get out in front of this with some context.

Sure, it’s possible that everyone manages to stay out of trouble and the story fades into the ether. It’s also equally possible that, right at this very moment, Bob Ley is on a C-130 preparing to parachute into Gainesville with an army of cameramen and a briefcase full of spotshadowed Alachua County Court transcripts. As such, I err on the side of letting the facts see the light of day, especially when those facts are actually favorable when compared to the initial mock outrage.

So that brings us full circle, in a sense. All of these issues make the Gators look bad, at least for as long as people are talking about them. But paradoxically, we needed to talk about them to get the facts straight. As I noted from the beginning, some of these incidents are serious and some are, well, stupid. Forgive me if I don’t feign outrage over Dorian Munroe removing a boot from his car. That clarification alone was worth the bloodletting.

But now it’s time to stop. I could waste 1,000 words on whether you need thugs to win (probably) or how fair the inevitable OTL piece is going to be (not very), but it is all wasted energy barring any new developments. And just as I’ve closed every previous such post, pray those inevitable new developments aren’t of the “OH THAT IS SO MESSED UP!” variety.

Congrats to former Florida tight end Cornelius Ingram who signed a four-year $1.9 million contract with the Philadelphia Eagles. Ingram, who received a $1830,000 signing bonus, can now focus on compeating to be the Iggles’ number-two tight end.

That’s a happy ending to what was initially a sad story. I will always wonder what could have been for the 2008 Gators with Ingram on the field — I’m thinking somewhere in the neighborhood of “historical greatness” — but I’ll settle for a national championship and a pro contract for C.I. Well done, sir.

Photo via the Houston Chronicle

Photo via AL.com

Including incoming freshamn, 16 Gators were selected in the Major League Baseball Draft this week. Congratulations, all. But only one has any relevance to football: Riley Cooper was a 25th-round pick to the Texas Rangers.

That’s 10 rounds later than he was selected out of high school and maybe, possibly, hopefully late enough to keep him on the Gator football team this fall. Jeremy Fowler was unable to reach Cooper’s parents (or, apparently, Cooper himself) but portions of his post seem to indicate that this could still be a fluid situation:

“But don’t be surprised if Cooper is negotiating a deal after his bitter breakup with the baseball team … The decision could hinge on whether Cooper thinks he has a realistic chance at pro football.”

Ominous? Perhaps. That could be based on bits of inside knowledge or it could be merely speculative in nature. Either way, those are reasonable points to raise. I don’t think that a 25th-round pick who struck out in nearly 50 percent of his at-bats is likely to receive a big-money contract offer, but the prospect of earning even a little money is a powerful pull on just about any college student. As we recently learned with the developing “West Coast Tebow” situation, Cooper could also play professional baseball and still retain his amateur status in NCAA football.

My gut is that come September 5, Cooper will still be catching lasers from roommate Tim Tebow. And the Gators frankly need that. Cooper is the most experienced receiver on the squad with 30 career catches for nine touchdowns. He’s a big target, a good run-blocker and the only member of the receiving corps to see significant playing time in each of the past three seasons. Losing his experience would be a blow. Not a fatal one by any means, but Cooper’s presence would mean that a young player stepping up and contributing would be a luxury, not a necessity. You don’t want to be forced to rely on a redshirt freshman for this:

Photo via The Oklahoma Daily

During the 2008 season, I never thought of the Florida Gators as “dominant.” I’m guessing I was just too wounded from the Ole Miss loss to think clearly, but for whatever reason, I kept thinking about a 9-3 fourth quarter lead over a feckless Miami team or Shay Hodge sneaking behind Major Wright and OHGODNO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then the 30-point wins started piling up. There was the fourth quarter comeback against Alabama and holding Oklahoma to 14 points. When the dust settled and I looked at the numbers, I had to wonder: What the hell I was thinking?!?!?

The turning point came when I read the Birds & Braves statistical breakdown of the 10 BCS champions. Florida’s 2008 offense averaged 2.67 yards more per play than its defense surrendered, which is really just obscene, quite frankly. Among the BCS champions, only 2005 Texas (2.68) was better, and 2001 Miami (2.61) was the only other team in the same galaxy. (Even 2005 runner-up USC weighed in at a mere 2.3.) According to Jeff Sagarin’s strength-of-schedule rankings, Florida accomplished that feat against the fourth-toughest schedule in the nation, a much better slate than the ones that Texas (13) and Miami (27) faced.

“Although few will make the case that 2008 Florida is one of the great teams of recent history because they lost a home game to Ole Miss, the yardage numbers put the Gators in elite company. Florida had the best offense of any national champion this decade, a defense that would stack up with most, and they played a very difficult schedule.”

So why was I so off-base during the season? Well, human nature, for one. But I think I have at least a part of a real answer, and it’s relevant to the discussion of how good the 2009 team can be.

For as good as the Gator defense was, a few teams did manage to have some success against it. Georgia racked up close to 400 yards of total offense, Alabama man-handled the front seven for the middle two quarters and Oklahoma answered each of the Gators first two touchdowns with frighteningly efficient blitzkrieg scores.

Yet just four opponents cracked the 20-point mark, and only Ole Miss (Ugh. Them.) scored more than 21. Why? Red-zone defense.

Percentage-wise, Florida had the third-best red-zone defense in the nation last year and was one of just three teams to surrender a score on fewer than 70 percent of its opponents red-zone possessions (69.23). In 39 tries, Gator opponents scored a touchdown less than half the time (18) and made nine field goals. On 12 occasions walked away with nothing. Sometimes in memorable fashion:

Now, success like that isn’t a huge shock given how good the defense was overall (fourth nationally in scoring defense, ninth in total defense), but even among the elite defenses, Florida more than held its own:

Note: For simplicity sake, I counted all touchdowns as 7 points, irrespective of the outcome of the try.

Florida actually let teams into the red-zone more times (39) than any other team on that list, but it allowed fewer points per possession than all but Tennessee. Opposing teams were more likely to walk away with three or zero points than they were with a touchdown. (Fortunately, the Gators allowed just three touchdowns of 20 yards or longer – a meaningless score with a 42-point lead against Citadel and two big plays against Ole Miss. Yes. Them. Again.)

So was the 2008 defense great, or merely very good with a bit of luck in the red-zone? Well, neither. Florida’s 2008 stop unit was excellent, but it probably doesn’t rank among the best defenses of all time or even of recent vintage for that matter. The Gators surrendered 3.35 yards per carry and tied for 23rd nationally in sacks with 33. Good, but not all-time good.

I don’t think there was a disproportionate amount of luck at work, either. Yes there was some CromptonFAIL sprinkled in, but based on the overall statistical strength of the defense, I think it’s fair to say that they were a very good unit that tightened up even more inside their own 20.

With the same cast returning almost entirely intact (Torrey Davis, we hardly knew ye), there’s no reason to think that the defense won’t be even better in 2009, even if the turnover margin (+22) or the red-zone defense comes down to Earth a bit. But who’s to say that even that will happen?

I hate to come off a week’s absence with another story about lawbreakin’. I really do. But as suspected, the story isn’t going away. Thankfully, however, we now have the facts, and unlike a variety of media reports you’re about to see, we know how to use them.

First, major kudos to Jeremy Fowler of the Orlando Sentinel for succeeding where I failed and finally providing us with a complete accounting of all 24 “arrests.” It turns out the actual number of players arrested is 19, with four former Gators being responsible for multiple incidents. My list missed the following players, not counting Janoris Jenkins who was arrested subsequent to the initial publication:

• Riley Cooper: Misdemeanor obstruction for failing to get out of the way of a moving police or fire vehicle. Charges dropped.
• Louis Murphy: Misdemeanor weed possession. Charges dropped. (Totally forgot about that.)
• Jon Demps: Misdemeanor driving with a suspended license. Charges dropped. Demps was booted for undisclosed, drug-rumor-y reasons, but his arrest was minor.
• Dawayne Grace: Two incidents involving battery, disorderly conduct and the always dreadful “violation of a city ordinance.” Meyer suspended him indefinitely after the second incident and he transferred.

Without knowing more about the Dawayne Grace situation (could go either way) none of those exactly fall into the “depraved” category. The truly heinous incidents, it seems, belong to just four players: Ronnie Wilson, Jamar Hornsby, Jacques Rickerson and Avery Atkins. Does that warrant a pat on the back? Something like, “Hey, you guys only committed one fucked up crime this year, great job!” No, it does not. But it’s worth noting.

Overall, we’re left with this: 19 players racked up 24 “arrests” in four years. That’s bad. But how bad? Fowler’s Sentinel colleague Andrea Addelson has an opinion: It’s a ssuper-suhrious problem:

Let’s put these numbers into context. The arrest rate for the football team going back to Meyer’s first season in 2005 is roughly 10 percent (24 arrests out of 239 players listed on the official roster).

Compare these numbers to the general population. In 2004, the last year statistics are available, the Uniform Crime Reporting Program of the Department of Justice reported the arrest rate in the United States to be 4.7 percent (4,752.4 arrests per 100,000 residents).

But, oh, how that analysis is flawed. First, the actual Gators arrest rate is just shy of 8 percent (19 of 239 players), but we’ll give that one a pass since everyone was initially confused about this.

UPDATE: With apologies to Adelson, I went overboard on that point. The overall arrest rate for males 15-24 obviously is likely to include many individuals who have been arrested multiple times. Thus, 24 arrests from 239 individuals is the most fair number to use here. Mea culpa. The overall point still holds, however.

Second, complete crime statistics are available for a year as recent as 2007. Really, it’s right there on the FBI Web site, which is the first result in a Google search for “Uniform Crime Reporting.”

But most importantly, she uses the overall arrest rate in her analysis, which would be fine if we were dealing with a population sample that was representative of the overall demographic makeup of the United States. We’re not. We’re dealing with individuals who are, relatively speaking, far more likely to commit crimes: Young males. As such, we shouldn’t look at a number (the overall rate) that incorporates grandmothers and infants.

It’s hard to find data for the age range typical of college football teams, namely 18-22. But we can get close by comparing U.S. Census estimates and crime data for males aged 15-24. In July of 2007, there were an estimated 21, 800, 163 15-24-year-old males living in the U.S. That’s about 7.23 percent of the total population.

Of the 14-plus million arrests made in 2007, more than 3.2 million involved males aged 15-24. That tells us three things:

1. Young males make up 7.23 percent of the nation but are responsible for 22.8 percent of its crimes.
2. The arrest rate for those young males is actually 14.8 percent.
3. Young males are stupid.

So Florida players get arrested at a LOWER rate than their peers, which isn’t surprising considering the discipline and structure inherent to almost any football program. In general, sports teams and their coaches tend to keep otherwise wayward souls on a straight path. I don’t think the Florida Gators and Urban Meyer are any exception.

The flip side of this, of course, is that Meyer has control over whom he lets into the program — this isn’t a neighborhood Boys & Girls Club team. On at least a few instances, he apparently chose poorly. The fact that some of his players occasionally smoke weed or get into bar fights should be neither surprising nor a cause for alarm. But several incidents involving domestic battery and AK-47s in a short amount of time should and will raise red flags.

We could take that in a million different directions, but I’ll be more succinct: There’s absolutely cause for some introspection here. But when Outside The Lines, Yahoo Sports or whoever inevitably comes knocking, don’t let them tell you that Florida is some kind of a haven for criminals relative to the rest of society. The facts simply don’t support that conclusion.

UPDATE: That didn’t take long. Huntley Johnson is on the scene, and you’re not going to believe this, but he says Jenkins did nothing wrong and was in fact breaking up the fight. Fowler has the deets. In reality, it’s good to hear that a vigorous defense is in the works, but as Johnson alluded to, this still smells like a deferred prosecution, which still could mean a whole lot of Markihe Anderson against Charleston Southern.

_ _ _

Well crap. The Gators’ much-discussed arrest tally has climbed another notch this weekend after starting cornerback Janoris Jenkins was tased and charged with two misdemeanors.

Police received a report of a fight in the 100 block of South Main Street and arrived at the location at about 2 a.m., Saturday to find Jenkins fighting with about five other people. An officer ordered the group to stop fighting but no one listened to the commands, the report stated.

The officer then drew out a Taser and told the group stop. At that point, Jenkins hit another person in the head, police reported. The officer then used the Taser on Jenkins.

Amazingly to anyone who’s ever watched a taser video, Jenkins was allegedly able to shake off the shock, get up and run a block and a half before finally being apprehended. Jenkins said he was fighting because he believed someone, most likely a hater, may have been trying to take his chain.

There’s no way to spin this as a non-story, since it sounds like most of this happened while the cops were actually there. No combination of Bull Gators and Alachua County court officials can make that simply disappear. Assuming Jenkins has no prior record, however, the story indicates that pre-trial deferment may be likely, which would certainly be good news for Jenkins. In any event, this incident would seem to fall somewhere  in “boys being boys” territory in the scale I outlined on Friday, which is, again, not meant to excuse or condone the behavior. But by itself it probably isn’t the end of the world, as long as it’s not part of a larger pattern of behavior.

For the Gators, though, this absolutely sucks. The timing and negative PR implications are bad enough, and there are on-field implications as well. Jenkins was phenomenal as a true freshman, and I felt at times that he was the best player in the Gator secondary. They need him on the field, but my guess is that this will draw a suspension for the Charleston Southern game, and possibly the game after that against Troy. If all stays quiet, however, that will probably be the end of it. The problem is, the next time someone gets caught doing something stupid, the total will be just that much higher.

(HT: EDSBS)

John Jones

Reserve linebacker John Jones will apparently transfer from Florida to seek more playing time. Jones saw action in 11 games in 2008, mostly on special teams. He recorded 18 tackles.

Jones was a part of the vaunted 2007 recruiting class and had fairly solid rankings from both of the major services: A three-star, #30 OLB from Rivals and a four-star #8 MLB from Scout. He had offers from LSU, Alabama, South Carolina and Notre Dame, among others. At Florida, however, he ran into logjams at all three linebacker positions and was likely to be listed behind the following players on the depth chart heading into fall camp: Brandon Spikes, Ryan Stamper, Brandon Hicks, Dustin Doe, A.J. Jones, Lorenzo Edwards, Jon Bostic and perhaps even Jelani Jenkins eventually.

Based on the firepower on that list, this is a move that makes sense for Jones. Under NCAA rules, he could transfer to a Division I-A school, sit out one season and have two years of eligibility remaining. He could play immediately if he went to a school in a lesser division, but he wouldn’t gain any additional years of eligibility. If it were me, I’d sit out a year for the chance to stay in the bigtime. Based on the few chances I did get to see him play, I’m guessing he could (at minimum) be a starter for a decent ACC school, for instance. Yes, yes. Save your jokes about the “ACC” and “bigtime.”

As for the Gators, this move does little more than ding the ‘ole APR score a few points. Jones wasn’t likely to be much more than a special teams player in 2009, and he’d have to fight with a number of highly touted youngsters for playing time in 2010, which would have been his senior season at UF. As such, there’s little more to do here than send Jones on his way with our best wishes. Godspeed, good sir.