Through My Eyes Part 12

Chapter Nineteen.

Matching Their Intensity.

G.o.dliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment.

-1 TIMOTHY 6:6.

I'm told that ninety-four million people searched for John 3:16 on Google during and immediately following the National Champions.h.i.+p Game. I knew that the verse would be seen by a ton of people, but that was beyond anything I would have imagined.

I thought and prayed about my upcoming decision a lot.

I thought I'd have a chance to finish strong in college. Since I'd always preached about finis.h.i.+ng strong, I wanted to act on what I'd said. But then again, there were some who thought that maybe I should go pro after my junior year-once a college player has been in college for three years, he can choose to make himself eligible for the NFL draft. By leaving early, I wouldn't risk a debilitating injury in my senior year, but I would risk the chance to be a part of one of the greatest college teams of all time and one of the greatest football recruiting cla.s.ses of all time, especially if we could win a third National Champions.h.i.+p to go with the ones in 2006 and 2008.

Between my dilemma of staying or going and Coach Mullen's leaving Florida for Mississippi State, our celebration after the National Champions.h.i.+p was short lived. There were a lot of question marks hanging in the air. I really didn't want to leave Coach Meyer. He and I had become more like brothers than simply coach and player. I would text his children on a regular basis, and he and I had lunch together in his office almost every day during the season, just talking. That relations.h.i.+p was a major factor in my decision.

Although I had thought about it and prayed about it a great deal, Coach Meyer and I hadn't spoken a word about it. We returned from the National Champions.h.i.+p game the following day, Friday, and met at a restaurant on Newberry Road in Gainesville, Ballyhoo Grill, on Sat.u.r.day, just down the street from the university.

It was Coach, my parents, and me. We talked and went through all the pros and cons of the decision. Coach made it clear that he wanted me to stay for selfish reasons, that he liked coaching me and hanging out in his office with me. He also thought that with one more season, my career might go down as one of the best in college history. I wasn't sure about that, but I agreed that I loved my time with Coach and at Florida. Still, Coach Meyer tried to be objective and helpful, even offering to call people he knew in the NFL and try to get an informal gauge on my draft status.

At one point, my dad and Coach Meyer left the table, and my mom reminded me what we'd just heard about the incredible number of Google searches of John 3:16 that week just because I'd worn the verse on my eye black.

"Timmy, I doubt that people follow professional quarterbacks in the same way. Or if they do, there's no guarantee that they'd ever follow you in the pros the way people follow you here."

I nodded.

"Ninety-four million people on Google for John 3:16? Think of the influence you can keep having on kids and others if you stay another year," she said.

Although there are plenty of popular professionals, what she said made sense to me-we were leaning that way anyway. We knew that the platform G.o.d had given me as the Florida quarterback was a big one; who knew what it might be next? Bigger? Smaller? I knew G.o.d would give me a platform wherever I was-he does that for all of us-but I wanted to make sure I didn't give up the one He had already given, if I could continue to use it for His glory for another year.

There was more, though. For me, it all came back to finis.h.i.+ng strong, to practicing what I'd been preaching. The thought that I'd be with Coach Meyer and that I could finish my college career strong, and that we'd make something extremely special out of it-win or lose-was very appealing, and I would graduate this upcoming December. There would be plenty of time to go and pursue my dream of playing quarterback in the NFL, if that's what G.o.d had in mind. If not, He'd close that door, anyway.

I was also trying to figure out when I would have shoulder surgery, which I needed. Between workouts and the Combine, that might be challenging to schedule.

For now, I felt that I wanted to finish college strong, to do the best I could, and to be there for my teammates and Coach Meyer. To have a great senior year.

I didn't tell Coach Meyer that yet, though, but asked if I could speak to my family for a bit. He left to drive back to his office, but he did notice that I didn't take him up on his offer to call NFL coaches and scouts. Thirty minutes later, I called to ask him to meet me downstairs in the stadium. I figured that he knew, since he wasn't seated in the stadium on the forty-fifth row, but I told him anyway that I was staying.

He and I celebrated and decided that I would announce it publicly the following day, at the National Champions.h.i.+p celebration that the university was holding for us and the Gator Nation at Florida Field.

And Monday I had my shoulder surgery.

Once I'd decided to stay, I turned my attention to the season. After our experience with the 2007 season, we knew that we needed to fight complacency and continue to press on the accelerator to stay where we were while everyone else was chasing us.

While I'd made my decision to stay, not everyone was able to do the same. We lost several good players to graduation and the NFL draft including Percy Harvin and Louis Murphy. Brandon Spikes, however, chose to stay for his senior year, which made me happy.

The remaining players came in and tried to focus to prepare to repeat as national champs, but there were many distractions for a lot of the guys. For the most part, everybody was focused a lot like we were before the 2008 season, but it was always a problem finding just that right edge. You can tend to get complacent with the day in, day out stuff, because, frankly, you know you're a good team and have a lot of good players. I mean, you're the national champions, so you must be fairly talented to begin with, but you have to be on guard all the time so that complacency doesn't begin to set in.

We were digging to find the edge that would keep us on top. That whole off-season all Alabama talked about was how we beat them up in the fourth quarter to win the SEC Champions.h.i.+p Game. We knew they were working hard in Tuscaloosa, so we needed to exceed-or at least match-their level.

Somewhere he is out there, training while I am not. One day, when we meet, he will win.

To keep that from happening, we'd either have to fake that motivation or muster it up somehow. Not all people are self-motivated to be the best they can be. If we had lost the big game to end the season-that's something completely different. We could feed off that to motivate us as we began the next season, much as Alabama was using their SEC Champions.h.i.+p Game loss and their bowl loss to fuel their off-season work.

We, however, needed another impetus to motivate us. Coach Mick and Coach Meyer worked to give us that through the off-season with a variety of guest speakers, like Tony Dungy, Billy Donovan, and Doc Rivers. The rest of the coaches also worked to motivate us. Because Coach Mullen was at Mississippi State, Coach Meyer moved Steve Addazio into the role of offensive coordinator and hired Scott Loeffler as the quarterback coach. I was pleased, as I really liked Coach Addazio and I had gotten to know Scott when he recruited me to Michigan.

As leaders, we did a pretty good job of staying focused and helping the rest of the team as well to stay focused, knowing what our jobs were. A lot of us talked about it. Brandon Spikes, Brandon James, Riley Cooper, David Nelson, and I talked about how this was something we wanted to accomplish. We didn't shy away from talking about it. Sometimes we'd break the huddle after a workout and shout it: "Best Ever!"

The coaches wouldn't say it, but our goal as the cla.s.s of 2009 was to become the best team college football had ever seen. That kept us motivated.

Meanwhile, I continued to try and use my success for other purposes. Jamie McCloskey helped me get permission from the NCAA to put on the First and 15 event once again, but this time we made it a weeklong event. We still held the Powder Puff game with the sororities, but we added a number of other events to make it a full week. We added an auction that Coach Meyer and others helped with, and we held something we called a Brighter Day Event. Bill Heavener, my parents' friend and the founder of Full Sail University, brought a couple of RVs up to Gainesville to transport twelve underprivileged kids with us to Disney World for the day with at least one adult per child going along. One of my favorite events of the week was an ice-cream social in the pediatric wing at Shands Hospital, with balloons and ice cream in the kids' party room. For as much as I try to eat well, I've always had a soft spot for ice cream. Couple that with kids, and that's an event I can look forward to, every year, or even more often.

At the auction, we auctioned off my FSU "Braveheart" jersey, splattered in garnet paint-it sold for $250,000. All in all, we raised over $500,000, a nice increase from $13,000 the year before. Part of the money went to add a new children's room at Shands, called Timmy's Playroom, where other players and coaches continue to visit to this day. In fact, we raised the most in one week that any student organization in the country had ever raised.

To me, this event was just as important as school. Cla.s.ses had become routine and easy by this time. I graduated with a 3.66 GPA, and while I enjoyed Florida, I was also starting to think ahead to my future. I knew that somehow I would be involved in the community once my playing days were over. While that hopefully would not be for quite a while, it made sense to use my status as leverage to broaden that reach. Someday I figured I would be in full-time ministry work in some way, whether with my family or elsewhere. Why not get a jump now? Too many people wait for something to happen or for conditions to be just right, but G.o.d has given each of us a platform right where we are, and I was trying to use that as best I could.

Every year in August, before the season begins, college athletic conferences conduct Media Days during which the press has a chance to ask questions of representatives of each school: the head coach and a player or two. I was with Coach Meyer in Birmingham for the Southeastern Conference Media Days. It's a chance for the press to ask each coach what he expects of the upcoming season-about players, other teams, and so forth. A chance for football junkies to get their fill of football. While there, a reporter, Clay Travis, thought it would be newsworthy to go in a totally different direction than the other questioners.

"You've worn your religion on your sleeve . . . and I think that's made you very popular in the South and all over the country, that even if you're beating . . . their teams, they still like you personally. Are you saving yourself for marriage?"

I didn't dodge the question and answered truthfully, "I am." But I didn't understand-and still don't-why it was something that needed to be asked. Since when does anybody else get asked that? Travis later said he knew what my answer would be and thought it would be positive for kids and others to hear it publicly.

The funniest part about it is that the next reporter was too fl.u.s.tered to get his question out. We all had a good laugh.

To his point, athletes seem to be in the news far too much for the negative ways in which they relate to women, all too often with a lack of respect, and horrifyingly, at times, with violence. That distresses me. G.o.d wants us to foster healthy relations.h.i.+ps in all areas of our lives, and those relations.h.i.+ps should never be marked by conquest or putting ourselves or our "needs" ahead of others'. We are called to serve. I may not have thought the question to be appropriate, but thinking about it afterward, I realized that young women and men heard my answer and would continue to hear it going forward. As a result, there was the chance that they might find encouragement in my words and lifestyle to do the same and to wait until they were married to engage in s.e.xual activity.

My att.i.tude toward women has actually always been a decent way for me to talk about my faith. I'm constantly asked in locker rooms why I don't have girls around me all the time. Apparently, some guys think that women find quarterbacks appealing.

Whenever this has come up, I've always responded that our relations.h.i.+ps are what matter to G.o.d, and that if G.o.d wants us to treat strangers well, shouldn't we treat people we know and care for even that much better? I mean, I want to be a certain way when I get married, so shouldn't I treat those that I'm around and interested in that same way?

Another factor is that I have trouble finding girls who really like me for me. Ever since my recruiting experiences, I've kept my guard up because I realized that girls would often tell me whatever it was they thought I wanted to hear. I recognize that we all put our best foot forward when we're meeting new people, but it just seems that I've run into this a great deal, for whatever reason.

Sometimes in college it felt like some girls merely wanted to be seen with me. Meanwhile, I have the opposite dilemma. Because I'm so recognizable, and because I've been trying to stand for something, I try to be careful about who I'm with. I'd prefer to just get to know girls first, anyway. One of these days, maybe, I'll meet the right girl.

Some guys also seem to think that it's impossible to resist temptation. I've found-as in other areas-that if I've already thought through a situation and have a response prepared ahead of time in the event temptation rears its ugly head, it is that much easier to resist. Of course, staying away from situations and questionable areas whenever possible, where I know there may be temptations, is an even better solution.

The question seemed to have a ripple effect, where suddenly my decision to save myself was national news. In a way, I wouldn't have chosen to have him ask that question; sometimes I'd just rather live a private life. Plus, I never want to come across as preachy or thinking I have all the answers, or that I don't make mistakes. I make plenty-I'm far from perfect. At the same time, I didn't shy away from answering, because it's part of my platform, and it got a lot of people talking about it. Even reporters who were sometimes critical of me wrote that in a time when so many athletes were having children out of wedlock, they appreciated my stance. Seeing my words have that kind of impact made me realize that G.o.d had a plan for this, too-of course.

In the end, it was a mild distraction. We pushed it aside, because we had work to do, and I just kept my head down and got back to it.

Though I worked hard that summer, training for fall, there were moments to relax. For a few days that summer, we went on a family vacation, and while we were away, I got a call out of the blue from none other than Phil Mickelson, the pro golfer. He'd gotten my number and invited me to play golf at Sawgra.s.s, home of The Players Champions.h.i.+p. Under NCAA rules I couldn't play there, but I was allowed to play at Timuquana Country Club, where my dad is a clergy member.

I cut my stay at the beach vacation short to be able to meet him at Timuquana the day before he played in the TPC. I was excited to start off the first three holes playing out of my mind, simply because playing with him was helping me to play better. I usually shoot around ninety, but I just don't play very often, so my short game isn't very good. After those first three holes Phil and I were tied at one under. Maybe this was a career path for me I hadn't even thought about. Certainly the physical abuse on the body is a whole lot less. Eventually, reality set in, and I started to fall apart a little bit, but I still had a good round. Playing from the tips (the longest yardage) with Phil, I shot an 82, which was the best round of my life.

We had a great time talking about life, faith, and things of importance. He was going through some tough times, and I just tried to encourage him. How about that? You never know what G.o.d may use you for-no matter your age, place, or position in life.

Interestingly enough, he told me that whenever he comes to a club, he makes it a point to play well, but not too well. You don't want the members to suddenly think that their scores aren't that good. At the same time, you don't want to play badly because then they'll think the course is too hard.

So after a couple of holes, he said, "I'm just going to shoot a 67 and that'll be perfect."

Probably on the fifth or sixth hole, he said, "Man, you can really hit it a long way with your driver." Then he offered me his, telling me that it would be much better than mine. (We're both left-handed.) He was right-the ball went at least thirty yards farther. It was an insane drive.

On the fifteenth hole, a par 5, he handed his driver to me again and said, "Let it rip, man." He told me to tee it up just a little higher and I might get more carry, plus a better roll. So I did. I teed it up higher and hit it as hard as I could. Absolutely crushed it. Except that I got under it a bit too much, and the ball literally went straight up in the air. It may have landed five yards down the course still on the tee box, after going eighty yards straight up.

Even worse than the embarra.s.sment of that shot, it made a crazy sound right when I hit it. I had hit so far under the ball that it had scuffed the top of his driver. I felt terrible and apologized, but he said not to worry about it-he'd told me to do it. Thankfully, I was sure that he had ten of those drivers. Right?

"No, this is my driver. It's my baby. I love this club." He looked stricken as he said it but was trying very hard to be nonchalant and gracious, but I still felt terrible. He ended up using his favorite driver all week and played well but didn't win the tournament. Hopefully he doesn't blame me.

We kept playing, and then after a while we were both bragging about our strong throwing arms. Finally, on the last hole, with a crowd gathering at the clubhouse, we challenged each other to a throwing contest. He had somebody bring us a football, and the challenge was that I would throw it from my knees farther than he would throw the ball standing up.

He's got a good arm and probably threw it fifty or fifty-five yards. So I got on my knee, didn't say anything, and just let it fly. It went at least five yards past his.

He wanted a do-over, and I beat him again.

By the way, he shot a 67. Amazing.

Every year at the end of July we'd have a Strong Man compet.i.tion at Florida for fans. After that we would get a few days off and then start training camp to get ready for the beginning of the season. During that Strong Man compet.i.tion I was flipping tires end over end down the field with Brandon Spikes, my partner. I hadn't warmed up that great, and I'm not sure what happened-if it slipped from Spikes's grip or whatever-but I tried to pull up with all my might to lift it, and I felt instantly that my lower back gave out. I can be an idiot sometimes because I'm so compet.i.tive, and since the compet.i.tion was still going on, I didn't stop. I kept going through the pain.

Fortunately, I had only strained my lower back, but I ended up having to rest at the beginning of training camp that August. When I finally was able to start practicing, I wasn't allowed to engage in any contact. I was getting better each day until I was carrying out a fake and didn't even have the ball, and not thinking, Carlos Dunlap pushed me from the side and I aggravated my back again and had to sit out even more practices. That loss of practice time due to my back strain bothered me a bit, as did a slight nagging strain during the first half of the season, but it finally cleared up over time.

As a team, we had a good training camp and were well prepared for the season. We knew we still had to find an ident.i.ty because we'd lost Percy Harvin and Louis Murphy. Of the offensive players that we lost in the off-season, Louis was one of the toughest to replace because he had become my go-to receiver, especially on third downs. Of course, the loss of Percy hurt, too, but in a different way-he was such a playmaker and his explosiveness would always make something special happen on the field.

So we had to find receivers who could take their places. One of those was Riley Cooper, my roommate for two years, who made it clear from the start of camp that he was stepping up his game. Another was Aaron Hernandez, who did a good job catching the ball for us, since his speed at tight end made him a real match-up problem for defenses to cover with a linebacker. But as good as Riley and Aaron were, we didn't have the same deep threats we'd had the year before, which was going to make things more of a struggle offensively.

Similarly, we had two fast running backs with Chris Rainey and Jeff Demps, who would be outside guys with their fantastic speed, but we struggled to find an inside presence who could run the ball up the middle and help us out on short-yardage plays.

One thing we knew was that we had a great defense that we would need to rely on since we lacked the deep threats we had the year before. We knew we could still have a great team-we had a ton of talent-but we would just have to find new ways to get the job done.

From the score of our first game you wouldn't have noticed that anything was different. We opened the year with Charleston Southern and beat them 623. But we didn't play great, and we all knew it. In the end we were fine, and that was more than enough to win the game.

Then, for the second time in three years, we played Troy. I don't think that this version of their team was as explosive on offense as their 2007 version, but the rain would have slowed them down anyway. It poured in Gainesville that day, but it didn't make much difference on the field. We were a little sloppy but played a bit better than we had the week before and won, 566.

Things seemed to be headed in the right direction, but it was hard to tell. Neither of our first two opponents was as good as the teams that were to follow. You never want to look past teams like that, but I understood when guys did. In fact, maybe the rain helped us focus a bit. For me, it reminded me of games on the farm in the rain; as my dad says, "There's nothing more fun than football in the mud."

Where the weather made a big difference was off of the field. My sister Katie was down from her home in Atlanta for the game. Katie had obviously recovered from her double hernia surgery in the Philippines nicely and was toting my niece, Abby, everywhere, despite being pregnant. The family headed into their regular seats in the stands, but Katie and Abby, a toddler at the time, were headed up to Bill Heavener's box above the west stands in the stadium to stay out of the elements.

At one point, someone on the university staff overheard Katie mention that I was her brother, and because people at Florida have gotten very sensitive to NCAA regulations since the early 1980s, they incorrectly informed Katie that she couldn't stay in the box. Because Uncle Bill had been a college roommate of my father, Katie's presence in the box did not const.i.tute an impermissible benefit to the family, but those words fell on deaf ears. Compounding matters, even beyond the rain, was the fact that Katie realized she no longer had her ticket to her seat in the stands. She couldn't reach any of the family on their cell phones in the packed stands in the pouring rain, so Uncle Bill escorted her down into the stadium and to the seats. That game wasn't as memorable to me, but I know Katie will never forget it.

Lane Kiffin seemed to have a lot to say when he brought the Tennessee Volunteers to play us the following week. In person he's actually very nice, but in the weeks and months leading up to the game, he had way too many things to say to the press about Coach Meyer and the rest of us. At his first press conference right after he was hired, he said he'd stay up all night long singing "Rocky Top" after they beat us in Gainesville that fall. Then, over the summer, he had told Tennessee boosters that Coach Meyer had committed a recruiting violation, so the SEC office got involved; he ended up apologizing to everyone for his statements.

All that talk added up to an emotional game. It was also a frustrating game. Eric Berry got me again early on in the game with an interception on a poorly thrown ball, but aside from that, we did move the ball a bit. We were up 136 at the half and then had a chance to separate ourselves in the second half. We were up 236, and then I had a really good run down the right sideline, broke a few tackles, and was down around the two yard line where I spun and was stripped of the ball. Fumble. Recovered by Tennessee.

That run would have put the game away, but instead, they drove down and scored, making it 2313. Later, when they got the ball back, something curious happened. Down by ten in the fourth quarter in a conference game against a bitter rival, Tennessee kept giving the ball to Montario Hardesty, their running back, who was having a big day. There was no sense of urgency, however. They were huddling up and taking their time. I appreciate that our defense intercepted their quarterback, Jonathan Crompton, three times on the day, but it still was curious that they weren't trying to win the game; rather, it appeared that they merely wanted to keep it close.

Whether it was that lack of urgency or our stellar defense, we ended up winning, 2313. I think they were happier with the score than we were-Coach Meyer even had to try and encourage us in the locker room after the game.

It was turning into a strange season, with the pressure to achieve something special and the expectations we had placed upon ourselves. At this point in 2009, we were 30 and had won thirteen straight games over the course of the last two seasons, the longest streak in the country . . . but we were miserable. Simply winning didn't seem to be enough to satisfy us.

I didn't see it at the time, but looking back, I think we maybe should have embraced the 2008 National Champions.h.i.+p longer than we did. We immediately applied pressure to ourselves in the off-season, which some guys didn't respond well to. Even those who did find themselves burned out and stressed out early in the season. Certainly we should have worked hard and diligently, but I think we may have overdone it. Despite wins, it simply wasn't a very good situation.

With Kentucky up next, we tried to get past our issues and return to the drive that had fueled us for all of the previous year. Unfortunately, my health turned out to be the story of the next week. Actually make that the next three weeks.

It started on Thursday when I came down with the H1N1 virus, which at the time everyone was calling "swine flu." It came on fast and was awful. I threw up all night and got IVs all day Friday along with several others on our team who'd also gotten it. The doctors kept us away from the rest of the team because the virus was so contagious. That fall, a couple of college and pro teams had it sweep through their entire roster in days. Because we still had symptoms on Friday, the doctors had those of us who had been sick fly separately on Sat.u.r.day to join the team before the game.

By game time I felt much better, and the game itself started off well enough. As in most of our games against Kentucky over that last two decades, we dominated them. I was having a big day running, even though I had to have fluids administered intravenously throughout the game because of the flu. They used a big-huge really-diameter needle and squeezed the IV bags to force the fluids into our veins that much quicker, so we were able to get back on the field quickly.

I had rushed sixteen times for 123 yards into the third quarter, and we were driving again. We called Trick Left 351 P-Stick Lion, and as we were breaking from the huddle, I remember thinking that we actually should have scored on the play before. I went into my count and caught the snap. I looked for my receiver who was on a slant across the middle. This play would be a touchdown.

Darkness.

My parents looked serious, with a low metal ceiling above them.

Darkness.

"It's okay, Timmy," Kyle, our a.s.sistant trainer, said. "Just roll over." I couldn't figure out why I was rolling over or what the white metal was around me.

"They're just gonna slide you in there for a CAT scan." I rolled, stayed quiet, and waited for an explanation of why I was there.

As I was waiting for the slant to come open, a Kentucky defender had flown into me, hitting me below the chin. They told me much later that the blow to the chin wasn't what caused my concussion, but rather the back of my head hitting my offensive lineman, Marcus Gilbert, in the knee as I fell backward from the hit. Rather than being apologetic, Marcus pointed out that he was the one who should be hurt and that no one was asking if I'd damaged his knee with my head. (I hadn't.) My family, sitting and watching this all unfold before them in the stands, were horrified, and as they always do in times good and bad, they started to pray. It was an awful-looking hit, and the chief of neurosurgery at Kentucky later told my dad that he was sure my spinal cord had been damaged.

AP and our training staff, as well as Kentucky's staff, all immediately flew into action, as trainers always do when someone gets badly hurt. And the ones we have, along with Doctor Pete (Indelicato), at the University of Florida are exceptional. I've always appreciated that about sports-medicine professionals-they are a part of the team, but when someone goes down, the team allegiances fall away as they scramble to attend to the player. Any player.

I threw up as I was taken off in a cart-they were good enough to have draped me with a towel so I could at least have a moment of privacy. My parents rode in the back of the ambulance to the hospital, concerned and praying as I was checked out.

Coach Meyer came straight over to the University of Kentucky Medical Center, not far from the stadium, immediately following the game. He told me that my first question when I briefly came to on the field was, "Did I hold on to the ball?" I did. And my second, in the hospital, was, "Did we win?" We did, and John Brantley had filled in nicely for me in the fourth quarter. I found that to be consoling. Of course, I hated that I hadn't finished the game alongside my teammates, but I was pleased they had gone on to win.

Coach started telling me about the game, which my family says was about the time the fog started to lift for me. The medical staff kept me up all night, not letting me fall asleep, and took really good care of me. I checked out fine and returned to Gainesville the next day.

It's noteworthy, for reasons that don't immediately come to mind, that both times I went to Lexington, I came back injured. Those were good games, and I'd love to have them everywhere I played, but I just wish I could have the good games minus the injuries.

Thank goodness we had a bye week following the Kentucky game, because our next game was in Baton Rouge. We were ranked number one, and they were ranked number four, and despite our loss there in 2007, I loved playing in Tiger Stadium.

Florida flew in a concussion specialist from Pittsburgh to look at me. After evaluating me, he determined that one of the most important factors for me to be able to play again was that I be completely free of headaches for a certain number of days. To this end, the prescribed course of treatment was that I had to sit in my darkened apartment for days with no stimulation. No television, no reading. Just dark with no input of any kind whatsoever.

The LSU fans didn't seem to have my new cell-phone number, so that helped keep things quiet too.

I was so worried that I wouldn't get to play that I did everything I could to stay quiet and in the dark. I wasn't worried about playing again. I'd been hit plenty of times-hard-but had always bounced back. I didn't fear playing or being hit. I just prayed that the Lord would allow me to play-quickly. In keeping with my personality, that if a little is good then a lot is better, I stayed totally quiet and dark for the week. It was hard, but I tried to keep my thoughts quiet as well.

After our bye weekend, I was allowed to start to take on some light activities.

There was so much speculation as to whether I would play or not. It seems that everyone in the media had an opinion, which they were more than happy to share. I didn't care. I don't pay attention to all the noise out there, since everyone always seems to have an opinion, whether the person has the facts or not. For me, it was easy. I was going to do everything I could to get out there-by doing what the medical professionals were telling me to do.

The guessing continued right up until game time. Coach Addazio put together two game plans, one for me, and one for Johnny Brantley. I was worried about the flight, since, as with roller coasters, my head doesn't always respond well to flights, but as it turned out, the flight wasn't an issue.

After a number of tests, the doctors cleared me to play the morning of the game, but Coach took me aside before we got on the bus to go to Tiger Stadium.