If the way he plays football is any indication, Jeffery Demps must be a pretty smart shopper.
No one has been better at doing more with less this season than the speedy, freshman tailback, who leads No. 5 UF in rushing yards and touchdowns despite being fourth on the team in carries.
Where most running backs under coach Urban Meyer struggle - learning to make the most of a low number of touches - Demps has excelled, beyond even his expectations.
"No, I wouldn't have believed (how well I've done)," he said. "I knew coming in that I'd probably get a couple of carries, but I wouldn't have believed I'd have this many carries and be leading the team in rushing."
Demps' numbers (307 yards and four scores on 23 carries) blow away those of Tim Tebow and Percy Harvin, who led the Gators in rushing last season, and his 13.3 yards per carry is best in the nation among players with at least 20 carries.
Perhaps more importantly, Demps and redshirt freshman Chris Rainey give UF's offense something it has been missing in recent years - big-play threats at running back.
Demps has already ripped off more runs of 30 yards or more (five) this season than the Gators' tailbacks managed all of 2007 (three), and he averages 47 yards per touchdown run.
Rainey - the team's second-leading rusher - has a similar skill set, accounting for UF's other two runs of 30-plus yards, touchdown dashes of 33 and 75 yards.
"Having them in the game opens things up," Tebow said. "Their speed allows them to get to the edge. We can put them in open space to try to create one-on-one matchups. They are so fast and athletic we can stretch the field horizontally."
Demps in particular has made a big impact in recent weeks. With Emmanuel Moody out with a high, right ankle sprain and Kestahn Moore battling a hamstring injury, the Gators didn't seem primed to break out in the ground game against Arkansas and LSU.
But UF logged its highest rushing totals of the season in those contests, largely because of Demps and Rainey.
Against the Razorbacks, they each went over the century mark and combined for 206 of the Gators' season-high 278 yards. Demps saved his best performance for the biggest game, piling up 129 yards against LSU as the team totaled 265.
And it's no coincidence that those were also the offense's best outputs as a unit against Southeastern Conference foes.
"I did a little study on the bye week on our scoring drives, and almost every time we have a big play over 15 yards, we've scored, except for twice," Meyer said. "Having the ability to hit a big play in the middle of the drive is just phenomenal. Your percentage of scoring goes way up."
Meyer has found a way to compensate for the duos' size issues as well (Demps is 5-foot-8, 176 pounds, and Rainey is 5-9, 185).
The Gators' offensive line has utilized splits - lining up farther apart - to create more running lanes in the middle of the field, and Demps and Rainey have taken full advantage of the ploy, making them more complete backs than their diminutive statures would imply.
"Most teams aren't used to seeing those kinds of splits," Tebow said. "It puts another bind on the big, strong guys only looking to plug gaps because they have to get off blocks and then handle someone like Chris Rainey or Jeff Demps."
