Emmanuel Moody admits he was a selfish running back when he first arrived in Gainesville.
Transferring from Southern Cal in 2007, Moody says he was too concerned with building off the stats he posted during his time with the Trojans. How many carries would he get? Yards? Touchdowns?
But, through two seasons at UF, Moody has yet to put up numbers quite as good as he did with USC, where he rushed for 459 yards and was named the Pacific-10 Conference Offensive Freshman of the Year by Sporting News.
Splitting carries with three other backs and a now-legendary option quarterback has left him with only 58 carries in each of the past two years. While handling such a light load, however, Moody came to a realization.
“This is my 15th year playing football and personal goals really are almost foolish,” he said at UF’s media day on Aug. 10. “This is a team game, you have to have team goals.”
Ironically, the redshirt senior may have made this realization just as his role in the UF offense is about to increase. With quarterback John Brantley taking over for Tim Tebow, the Gators’ coaching staff has made it clear the offense will be tweaked to fit their its personnel.
With Tebow gone, so too is the idea of the UF quarterback receiving the bulk of the team’s carries. Last season, Tebow carried the ball 217 times. Running back Jeff Demps, by comparison, was second on the team with 99 carries.
While none of the running backs will suggest they are happy Tebow is gone, each one admitted they are excited about their expanded role.
“Who doesn’t want that?” running backs coach Stan Drayton said. “They’re competitors. They want, in their minds, to have an effect on the football game. As a running back, with the ball in our hands, we definitely have a chance to have a major effect on the game.”
And while the team loses a weapon in Tebow’s legs, the Gators’ rushing attack will actually be more versatile this season, Drayton said. Because Brantley is more comfortable dropping back than Tebow was, UF will keep defenses off balance by switching between the spread and under-center formations.
Drayton added that losing Tebow will make recruiting running backs easier, pointing out freshman Mack Brown, the No. 13 running back in the nation last year, according to Rivals.com. While watching the Gators, Brown said he knew the running backs’ roles would change with Brantley at quarterback.
“If you’ve got a major playmaker, you’ve got to have the ball in his hands,” Brown said. “But since Tebow left, some of the carries have fallen in our hands, so we’ve just got to do what we can with it, do our best with it.”
In particular, the running backs will need to come up big in short yardage situations, when Tebow powered his way to many of his 57 career rushing touchdowns. At 215 pounds, Moody is now the heaviest ball carrier on the team, meaning his number could get called a lot.
He doesn’t care about the stats that come with those carries, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t happy.
“There will be a lot more carries to go around to the running backs,” he said, “and that’s why we came to Florida — to run the ball.”
