[gatortalk] RE: [gatornews] [Post & Courier]: FYI -- C.J. Spiller enters his senior season as the featured back with a Heisman campaign

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 05:42:02 -0700

If Spiller had come to UF - perhaps he wouldn't have so many regrets ...
 
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [gatornews] [Post & Courier]: FYI -- C.J. Spiller enters his
senior season as the featured back with a Heisman campaign
From: Shane Ford <[email protected]>
Date: Mon, August 24, 2009 8:20 am
To: [email protected]

C.J. Spiller enters his senior season as the featured back with a Heisman campaign

By Travis Sawchik

Sunday, August 23, 2009

 
 

C.J. Spiller

 

C.J. Spiller returned to an old routine this summer: early-morning jogs around his hometown of Lake Butler, Fla., a practice he'd tossed aside prior to his freshman season — his best season.

The last few summers the relaxed runs were shelved in favor more explosive training exercises: short sprints, running up inclines. The return to the tours of his sleepy hometown (population: 1,900) in north-central Florida, its Main Street storefronts reminiscent much of Clemson, allowed him to think, to reflect which a more energy-intensive workout precluded.

'I was just meditating about the season, envisioning things for the team that we can accomplish,' Spiller said, 'being down in Tampa and winning an ACC championship ... I want to get a chance to see what it feels like in the locker room after winning a title.'

He says he thought little about passing up the NFL Draft, though he said he had a first-round grade. He thought about the Spiller-for-Heisman campaign the school was to launch. The naturally reserved Spiller thought about the vocal, motivational role Dabo Swinney persuaded him to undertake. Something Spiller had already entertained. He knew he had star talent, he thought about how he could also become a galvanizing leader, how he could become legendary.

Spiller also thought about regrets.

Perhaps his decision to return was sealed in his subconscious after the disaster that was last season's opener against Alabama.

He was upset over the following words written and said about his former head coach Tommy Bowden. It was on the team he thought. How they, how he, allowed the season to spiral out of control.

Crushed, 34-10, by Alabama on Aug. 30, the Tigers lost again, at home, to Maryland on Sept. 27. On the same day Florida lost at home to Mississippi.

Spiller watched his old friend Tim Tebow, the Florida quarterback, deliver a post-game address replayed from coast to coast. Spiller knows Tebow's speech well, like speechwriters know the Gettysburg Address:

'You have never seen any player in the entire country play as hard as I will play the rest of this season and you'll never see someone push the rest of the team as hard as I will push everybody the rest of this season, and you'll never see a team play harder than we will the rest of this season.'

To Spiller, 'The Promise' speech contained moving, to-the-point words from Tebow, who he watched at Ponte Vedra Beach, 50 miles east of Lake Butler, during their high school days. The former Heisman winner was a player Spiller always admired from a distance, a devout Christian like himself.

Tebow's words were immortalized on a plaque outside the new Florida football headquarters this spring after the Gators went on to win the national title.

While Tebow rallied his team, at Clemson, Spiller was quiet.

Clemson lost its next two games at Wake Forest and home against Georgia Tech, after which Bowden was out.

'I should have said something after the Alabama game,' Spiller said, 'I could have got (a quote) memorialized. It just showed (Tebow) is not afraid to speak out and stick up for teammates. Not only did he speak up, he went out there and backed it up.

'I think about that speech every time we face adversity. How he just grasped his teammates by making that statement and his teammates followed.'

Spiller made his own promise — a promise to speak up, to be a leader in all ways.

He was not concerned about his new on-the-field requirements, entering his senior season in a feature-back role for the first time.

He's been healthy, playing in 38 of 39 games the last three seasons. The staff is unconcerned with his 5-11, 195-pound body holding up since he is so elusive and able to avoid contact. He's taken on some of Marshall Faulk's unusual demanding workouts and studies tape of the versatile former NFL star, whom he considers similar to himself. He's even studied footage of past NFL legends like Jim Brown and Walter Payton.

He expects to produce career-best numbers in what he thinks will be an explosive offense. He needs only 921 all-purpose yards to break Leon Johnson's (North Carolina, 1995) ACC mark.

If all goes according to plan, he should easily eclipse his career-best marks of 938 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns set as a freshman, when he rushed for 7.3 yards a carry, the best average in the ACC since Warrick Dunn averaged 7.5 yards per carry in 1995 at Florida State.

Spiller admires Dunn for his off-the-field work, and someone he used to pretend to be in youth football.

While such quantifiable, physical skills are well documented, Swinney and offensive coordinator Billy Napier kept on Spiller to become more vocal, more assertive. Leadership is especially necessary for a Tigers' offense featuring a rookie quarterback and inexperience at receiver.

'That demeanor, that part of his personality is coming into a effect lately,' Napier said. 'You've got to constantly remind him ‘Hey, guess what C.J. guys are watching you to see how you respond in certain situations. If you can have a great attitude and really be a vocal guy then you have a chance to be a great leader.'

'I think (Ohio State) coach (Jim) Tressel said the best football teams he's been around are when the best players are the hardest workers and I think that is the case with C.J. Spiller.'

Swinney sees growth.

'Little things, like I'll see him during stretch go encourage all his teammates,' Swinney said. 'I've seen him meet with the offensive line. I'll see him be a little more assertive at times. I'll see his body language improve when he is getting his butt chewed out for something or he made a mistake.'

Spiller said he's sat in on offensive line meetings to better understand their calls, which he thinks will make him more effective. On off days, sophomore Jamie Harper said Spiller calls the backs in for extra film work and drills.

'I'm laid back, quiet, not that outspoken. I let my action speak,' Spiller said. 'This year coach Swinney told me if I'm vocal they'll listen to what I have to say. So that's something I'm trying to adjust to ... I see what Tim does to get the most out of his team. I try to follow him as much as I can.'

Worth ethic has never been an issue with Spiller, who has earned Swinney's highest praise as a player who 'has it and gives it.'

Spiller watched his mother work grueling shifts as a nurse, his devout grandmother work as a high school janitor. His father drives dump trucks in Miami. Spiller was even all-in while stocking shelves at Goody's during high school. His maturation accelerated with the arrival of his daughter Shania, now 3, as a freshman.

'Life is not all about me,' Spiller said. 'I have other people I have to look out for. I have to make decisions that are not only going to affect me, but everyone that surrounds me. (Shania) is the reason I work so hard at what I do. You have to grow up pretty fast.'

Distance from his daughter and disappointment with the way his freshman season ended, five carries in a loss to Kentucky in the Music City Bowl, nearly prompted him to transfer to Florida.

He thinks about that from time to time. He says it was a moment of emotional weakness, 'freshman jitters.' He's glad he stayed. He's glad he didn't try to reestablish himself in Tebow's town. Like Tebow has done, he'd love to bring a Heisman and a BCS trophy to his own backyard.

'I swing for the fence,' Spiller said. 'If you don't hit it over the fence you can always hit it against the wall.

'I have a deep faith. I believe everything that was supposed to happen last year, it can happen again this year.'

 



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