Tebow’s teammates revere their leader
It’s been an interesting week in South Florida. Maybe Nic Harris has been the most interesting Sooner.
Harris decided to be a pain in the butt awhile back. Ask him a question, and he’ll cop an attitude.
Back in Norman, I asked him what did he think was the problem on kickoff coverage. His response: “I am neither coach nor critic, therefore I cannot answer.”
Here in Florida, he offered some of the same kind of answers. “I am not an electrician, I am not a mechanic, I am not a carpenter. I don’t fix things.”
Oh, OK. Hope that attitude doesn’t prevail when his coaches ask him to fill a certain gap on the kickoff unit.
But my favorite Harris quote of the week came when he was asked if it was cool to be a part of only the second game in history that matches Heisman Trophy winners. “Cool for who?” Harris asked. “Cool for fans? Cool for critics. Not really cool for us. It won’t be cool until we get a win. I could care less who won the Heisman.”
I don’t think that’s the mindset of most Sooners, and I promise you it’s not the mindset of the Florida Gators, who adore, if not worship, their quarterback, 2007 Heisman winner Tim Tebow.
When Tebow made his now-legendary vow after the loss to Ole Miss in September, he entered mythical status in Gatorland. And that includes with his teammates.
Flanker Louis Murphy: “It meant a lot to me that my quarterback could stand up as a man of character, and when our backs were against the wall and when everybody doubted us out, he stood up and was like, ‘We’re going to make it.’ Everybody felt the same way in the locker room.”
Tebow actually delivered the message to the media first, in the press conference after the loss. Then the next day at a team meeting, he repeated his vow to not let down the Gators again
“He got us energized,” said offensive tackle Phil Trautwein. “He kind of cried a little bit. His face was all red. He was ready to go.”
Offensive tackle Jason Watkins said, “Seeing our quarterback stepping up like that, that’s a great motivation for our O-line and especially for our team. We took it as a chip on our shoulder, and each day we work even harder in practice to make sure we can uphold the promise that he made. And from then on we took it on ourselves that we’ve just got to go out and work to our potential.”
O-line coach Steve Addazio, who will become Florida’s offensive coordinator after this game, made a great point. He said Tebow’s speech made everyone realize “how fragile every football game really is. That’s really what you realize in that scenario, that the margin for error is not that great. As a player, as a coach, as a program, you really have to understand that you go into every contest, you’ve got to bring you’re A game. It was a wakeup call to everybody.”
Florida, of course, hasn’t had a close game since, other than a 31-20 victory over Alabama in the SEC title game.
Tebow said his speech wasn’t off-handed. He knew what he was doing and wanted to do it. A lot of his teammates felt “the same way I did. A lot of them tried to console me after the game, which I appreciated.
“When I was sitting in the locker room trying to think and pray about what I wanted to say, I didn’t want to just go out there and speak straight out of emotion or just ramble on just out of anger. I wanted to say something that meant something, something that was going to last.”
Mission successful.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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Comments
Good for Nic Harris. It’s about time someone on the OU defense carried an attitude. Reminds me of the glory days of Mike Stoops and Torrance Marshall.
Nic Harris is a thug, intentionally twisting Harvin’s ankle. He got a face full of chomp for his trouble.
GO GATORS!!!
I would guess that if Tim Tebow cried at all last night, it was for joy at accomplishing his goal of winning the national championship. He made the plays when it counted most!
Ole Miss made Tebow cry for 2 days! OU will make him wish he was never born!