Gators At SEC Football Media Day

University of Florida head coach Urban Meyer and seniors Ryan Stamper (Jacksonville, Fla.) and Tim Tebow (Jacksonville, Fla.) traveled to Hoover, Ala., on Thursday for the Southeastern Conference Football Media Day.

Below are excerpts from their respective sessions with the print media.

COACH URBAN MEYER

COACH MEYER: Thank you all for coming. I’m honored to be here and represent the SEC and the University of Florida. Also here to clear up that mystery that I'm the guy that didn't vote for Tebow. We have a very good football team. I’m very appreciative of the leadership of our program. It's as good a summer as I've been around in coaching as far as dealing with our guys and watching our strength staff work, talking to them about the professionalism. That was the key word throughout the month of January as we prepared for the championship game and December preparing for the SEC game. That has continued through spring practice and the summer. The key is let's get to August 6th. I've never been more anxious to coach a football team.

Q. There's a lot of expectations for your team. What are your expectations for this team?

COACH MEYER: Well, I want to get through these next two weeks. We go real hard for a week, then they have a week off and we start camp. I don't look much past that. This time last year, we had some real tough injuries. So we've given a lot of thought to how we're going to practice to keep that edge, to make it a very difficult training camp, yet safe, make sure we can get to the show, and that's our first game. Expectation as far as the season, our goals are always the same as it was in 2005, as it is in 2009, and that is we want to do everything we can to get to Atlanta. That's our whole we wake up every morning to try to achieve that goal.

Q. Would you talk about during this off season, I know you intended to make it the most difficult that Florida has ever had. Are you satisfied they did have that?

COACH MEYER: Well, I'll find out when we get 'em. Coach [Mickey] Marotti turns over the team to me on August 6th. You can usually tell once we get started in training camp what kind of off season they've had. We've had good ones and not so good ones. According to our players and strength coach, this has been one of the best, if not the best.

Q. With so much depth, how have you kept everyone happy so far?

COACH MEYER: I think we've really promoted the competition and we've promoted team first. Great things happen when you have an unselfish team. Last year's was arguably the most unselfish I've been a part of. They got to wear a championship ring, compete in the SEC championship game. That's what we have going for us right now. I really believe our guys love it at Florida. More importantly, I really believe they care for each other. It's a good situation right now in that locker room, in the weight room, and when they're together. That's not easy. You have 105, 120, 18 to 22 year olds from every stretch, some overrecruited, some underrecruited, some overrated, some underrated. And to keep those guys happy and motivated, that certainly a difficult task. The only way to get it done is with great leadership on our team and our staff does a heck of a job.

Q. There's been some concern about Tebow not getting under center enough in the past, especially concerning his future in the NFL. Do you see he'll get under center a little bit?

COACH MEYER: There's a lot made of that. The concern is not from the professional coaches that I have a lot of conversation with. That never comes up. Tim Tebow, we can't make this more complicated than what it is. If you want Tim Tebow under center, teach him to get under center, he'll probably do it better than anybody else. Are we going to place him under center? A lot of it depends on the quality of our tailback. To play an under center offense, you better have a monster back there at tailback that can take the pounding involved in that style of offense. I was involved in an offense I think 15 years. So we know that offense. Coach Addazio was very familiar with it. It’s a great offense.

It's very personnel-based on your fullback, on your tailback, your tight end. We've not had that luxury. This year, if T.J. Pridemore comes back, he’s a good fullback, we have three quality tailbacks. If they develop, it helps us win a game, we'll do that. We are certainly not trying to, because someone said Tim needs to be under center to enhance his draft status. I assure you, him playing under center has nothing to do with his draft status with the programs we talked to. If it did, we would help him because he earned that. It's not that different. To answer your question, he will be under center if it helps us win a game.

Q. Would you review the play calling process, offense, the impact that Dan Mullen's departure will have on that?

COACH MEYER: Sure. There's a little transition there. Steve Addazio will be on the sideline. We have two new coaches that will be in the press box. I have a graduate assistant very close to me, and he'll assist, as well. There's a little bit of a concern there. However, we've all been together. Not one guy calls a play at Florida. There's a play-caller, however, that's done between series and there's very good involvement. So I am concerned because Dan was very good at what he did, obviously. However, I'm very, very excited about the transition and the guys we have doing it. So the biggest issue I have is Steve Addazio will be on the field, and we were still working through that. But I have a lot of confidence we'll be fine.

Q. How amused are you when you see reports that say you'll leave eventually? Is that the nature of the business now when someone is perfectly happy that people think it can't last?

COACH MEYER: Well, it's disturbing. I'd lie to you if I said it wasn't. It's disturbing. I care about my family. I care about our football players, our staff and recruiting. If it affects that, then it bothers me. If it's something else, then that's good watercooler discussion. That's what makes the SEC such a valuable commodity right now, is the intense scrutiny and fan support. I've been on the other side now. I've had a couple press conferences where there was no one out there. So I certainly understand it. When it starts affecting your livelihood, that bothers you. Then you go into defense mechanism, attack it. You have to. We have to do that. It bothers you, but I also understand it.

Q. Regarding last year's SEC championship game, the momentum shifted in the fourth quarter. Alabama dominated you throughout the third quarter. You were able to flip it. Saban's Talk about that momentum shift, what happened there, how that carried you forward not just the fourth quarter by Miami and Oklahoma.

COACH MEYER: And through our off season and through the summer. I made this comment, I've been involved in football for quite a while, that was arguably the finest football game. You evaluate the way I do, you evaluate football and how hard the teams are playing, not how many yards a kid passes for or how many rushing yards. Are both teams absolutely spilling it? It's easy to evaluate. Watch the punt team, kickoff return team. Two football teams that were very well prepared. It was an unbelievable football game. Tim made some throws in there where guys were fairly well covered. He stuck it in there. That's how you win championships. They took the momentum very clear to this day. We punted a ball down, I believe, on the four-yard line. They take it, drive it right down on the field 96 yards, take the lead. It didn't look good for Florida football or the Gators that day. Then Tim and our defense worked together, and the offense. It wasn't Tim. We held Alabama to one yard in that fourth quarter. You can say it was Tim, but there's a lot of guys on defense that had something to do with that, as well.

Q. You've had some great defenses at Florida, obviously in 2006, arguably the best defense the school ever had. Last year, they were also very good. Now you're bringing back everybody on the two deep. Talk about how special that unit could be and maybe a historically great defense this season.

COACH MEYER: It really could. I'm real excited about that. More important, our defensive players are real excited. Last year, we gave some yards, but our guys would stop them. The national championship game was a perfect situation, a perfect example about not letting them in. Our red zone defense was phenomenal a year ago. We can certainly improve in a lot of other areas.

The best thing we have going is rotation and depth. One of the popular things in college football in and out is to go from a four down to a three down. That's not easy. First of all, you have to have the coaches that can do it. Then you have to have the players that have that kind of athleticism to stand up. You look at [Justin] Trattou, Duke Lemmens, Jermaine Cunningham, Carlos Dunlap, Brandon Spikes, have all those body types, that (snapping fingers), they could be a defensive end or linebacker. That's a problem for the offense. Our package has grown. Right now we're very comfortable with having those kind of athletes that can play a defensive down position, stand up, play a walk around guy. You're going to see a lot of that in college football. You already do. I would think that's the next cycle of defensive football, is the ability to go three down, four down quite often.

Q. Won two of the last three national titles. Miami and Florida State had their runs. What is it about the state of Florida that makes it such a great football state? Just the talent pool? What have you done to lock down that talent pool?

COACH MEYER: Well, we haven't locked it down. We've lost our recruiting battles. I think when our staff first got there, there's an energy of newness down there, the intensity. A big reason why I think Gainesville is the best job in America is because five hours in each direction, north, south, you got as good a football quality players. I think a lot of it has to do with the transition of population from the north to the south. I grew up in Northeastern Ohio where every year there would be a bunch of players going to Ohio State, Notre Dame, and Michigan. The population base just kind of shrunk down for a variety of reasons. Florida, the quality of high school football down there is phenomenal, and Georgia and Alabama. I mean, it's all right there, along with Texas. There's a bunch of them. There's still great football everywhere and we recruit everywhere. The population base and the level of importance of football in the south is phenomenal.

Q. How is Emmanuel Moody progressing?

COACH MEYER: We're looking for that all day, everyday tailback. Someone asked us the question about under center. Emmanuel Moody and Chris Rainey and [Jeff] Demps are going to have a lot to do with it. Scot Loeffler and Tim are not going to be the guys that are going to determine if we go under center. It's going to be the quality of tailback play. We're looking for that. We've not had that quality that we expect at Florida. Emmanuel looks terrific. He physically looks fabulous. He's a great young person that works hard. I'm anxious. That's an area we're going to really watch the first two weeks of training camp, and they know it. Big year for all those three guys.

Q. Are you concerned your middle linebacker was too shy to come and meet us today?

COACH MEYER: No. When he heard about this room, he heard about the whole deal, heard about all the cameras, he started squiggling his way out of that thing. Then he used the 'ol, ‘Coach, I think Stamper, he's the captain, he should be there, not me.’ But Coach Strong handled that. It's all good. Nothing is wrong with Brandon Spikes. He's great. He's just shy, I guess.

QB TIM TEBOW

TIM TEBOW: Good evening, first of all. Glad to be here. No, I do not know who did not vote for me. Got that question a lot (laughter). It's an honor to be here. I'm just happy I get to share with y'all for a minute. I'm so excited about my senior season. It's a dream come true to me to be playing this year at the University of Florida, a school that I love and I'm so happy to be at. My teammates that I'm playing with are the best in the world. I wouldn't trade them for anything. I'm just so looking forward to playing with them. This season is very special for us. I think we've had the best offseason that we've had since I've been at the University of Florida. My teammates are extremely focused, ready for the season to start.

Q. It would have been easy for you to walk away with two national championships and a Heisman Trophy. You're in the spotlight every day. Why didn't you walk away, start over, be okay with that?

TIM TEBOW: I definitely didn't look at it like that. I don't look at it as madness. I look at it as I'm blessed to come back to the University of Florida for my senior year. When I was deciding to go or to stay, there are a lot of things that crossed my mind. But I think the important things that I looked at were No. 1, the opportunity that I had to have an influence in the state of Florida and around the South, and the U.S. for that matter.

Something that really illustrated that for me is when we were sitting down at lunch, me, Coach Meyer, my mom and dad. We got a call, two days or so after the national championship game. That call told us that since the national championship game, the verse that was under your eyes was Googled 94 million times. That just kind of showed me, wow, the impact. I could wear something under my eyes and millions of people were going to Google it. I really had a platform. I wanted to take advantage of that for one more year, be a good role model for the kids that look up to me, set an example for them. That was kind of my No. 1 goal as far as coming back, and also to be loyal to Coach Meyer, to my teammates who have done so much for me. I wanted to come back and finish this thing strong for them.

Q. How aware are you, if at all, about, I guess I'd call, a Tim Tebow backlash, that people have had their fill of hearing about you? I don't think it's directed at you as much as the coverage, people doing the coverage. Do you sometimes wish there was less attention on you? Does it get embarrassing at times?

TIM TEBOW: Some things are hard to deal with. You would like to go to a restaurant without people trying to take pictures or go to a movie or something like that. But also you think that because of the articles that y'all have written and because of the articles that people continue to write, it's not only backlash from it, but there's also a lot of positive. So I try to look at things from the positive, and there have been a lot of great things. There have been a lot of people that have been encouraged not to have an abortion because they heard the story of my mom, or they have been encouraged because they have heard me share my faith on TV or in a report or something. You know what, although there has been a backlash, oh, well. You know what, I'll deal with it if I have to. It's not a big deal to me because of the kids and people that have been encouraged by the stories we have tried to tell and by the life that I've tried to live. Hopefully that's been an encouragement more than a hindrance to people.

Q. You're a competitive guy. You used last year's Heisman voting as motivation. How does this All SEC snub motivate you?

TIM TEBOW: I didn't know I was going to get that question (laughter). I really don't think this will be something that I will think about too much. I’ll probably get asked about it a few more times, but it really won't be something that I'll focus on. I really have enough to be motivated about. Plus, I'm pretty a pretty self-motivated person. This won't play too big into my motivation factor. I'm not going to run sprints thinking about the coach that didn't vote for me. You know, that's quite all right (laughter).

Q. Everybody knows about Coach Meyer's high scoring offense. Does he have any old-school qualities, toughness, physicality that maybe you can talk about, the old Bear Bryant school?

TIM TEBOW: Our offense is all about old-school toughness, dedication, go hit him in the mouth, that type of mentality. I think we feed off of that. We try to play like that. Our offensive line tries to be a tough offensive line. I think they have a little bit of a chip on their shoulder because we're known as a spread team who likes to do reverses and throw down the field and stuff. I think if you look at our team, you see that it's not just a dink or dunk are throw down the field, reverse team with fast players. I think we kind of take pride on being a tough team. Being a team, if we need to, we're going to try to hit you in the mouth over and over and over again. We take a lot of pride in that, being a tough team, being a team if we need to, we're going to go three yards in a cloud of dust over and over and over again. We have the toughness to do that, we have the leaders to do that. It's something that we do take pride in, that if we need to win a game by will and toughness, we want to be able to do that. All the guys, we just take pride in that.

Q. The struggles to repeat have been well documented in college football. What do you talk about during the summer, you and your teammates, about complacency, how you guard against it?

TIM TEBOW: We talk about it all the time. Complacency, leadership, not resting on your laurels, not worry about what we did yesterday, but worry about how we can get better today. I think the No. 1 way you counteract that is by every day you step in that weight room, every day you step on that practice field, you're worried about getting better and not getting by. We talk about that all the time as a football team when we're out on that field, ‘Don't worry about when it's gonna be over; worry about how much better you can get right now. Be the best you can be as a football player, be the best you can be today as a person, a football player, don't worry about getting by.’ So many times in every aspect of life, people are worried about getting by. You're worried about, ‘I can't wait to get done with this so I have my free time. I can't wait to get this interview done with Tim Tebow so I can get it over with,’ instead of worrying about how it can be the best it can be. In so many different ways, that's people's mindset. Our focus is to get better every day. How can we be the best team, best player, best unit we can be. Not how we can get by. I think that's our mindset. If we do that, I think we'll be successful.

Q. We asked Coach Saban earlier about the fourth quarter, the last two drives. He gave you a lot of credit for that, said Florida outplayed his team. Talk about those two drives, plays that got you over the hump, and also the conversation you had on the sideline with Coach Meyer before you went on the field.

TIM TEBOW: That conversation was simply, it's in our hands to go get it done. Then we talked to the offense, said we train for this, we train all year to finish strong. That's why we do everything, it's for these moments. You know what, it's in our hands right now. We're going to take advantage of it, believe in that, believe in each other, we're going to go get it done.

You just see on every play guys giving it their all in that fourth quarter. Not always being the prettiest, not always being the fanciest, but guys cared a lot about it. They were willing it to happen. Through the runs, through the passes, just everything that happened, you know, guys were ready to step up because they wanted it so bad.

I think offensively and defensively everybody was ready to step up. When his number was called, David Nelson stepped up, when Riley Cooper's number was called, he stepped up, when Carl Moore's number was called, he stepped up, when Jeff Demps' number was called, he stepped up. Our offensive line, Alabama was big and strong, but when they needed to, they stepped up. They were able to move the line and drive them back. I'm just so proud of my teammates for the character they showed, the toughness that they showed. When they needed a play, someone stepped up to make it. They just did a great job. That's what I'm so proud of my teammates for, is it wasn't one person, it wasn't two people, it wasn't five people, it was everybody in a collective effort to win that game. That's the reason we won.

LB RYAN STAMPER

"Coming into the season ranked No. 1, the whole team realizes we want to work every day. Our coaches do a great job keeping our heads level and focusing on our goal to win the Southeastern Conference Championship. Our offseason has been very tough for us. Our coaches are not treating us as a national championship team. Our mind-set is to work hard and get back to where we left off last year."

"With the success we have had, two national championship teams, we know how to win and know that believing in the hype is not a way to win a national championship. We have to be focused on every team, every game and not be complacent. With the leadership returning this season, we know we can win."

"There is no man like Tim Tebow. With everything he goes through, I do not know how he handles all the pressure and media attention. Tim is a great teammate. He really cares about everyone and makes sure everyone stays on top of everything. He is our leader and we all look up to him."

"We are focused on winning the SEC Championship. I'd be lying if I said the national championship hasn't crossed my mind, but we know if we win the SEC our chances to play for the national championship are much higher."

"Even though we lost [versus LSU in 2007] it was a great game. We fought really hard. I recall a fourth-and-one when Hester ran the ball. I made the hit on him, but he still got the first down. If I would have brought a little more to that hit, the game would have been over, but they got the first down. I'm looking forward to this year's game at LSU. They have a great fan base, they are very rowdy, and create a great atmosphere to play in."
The SEC ROCKS!!!
(by www.gatorzone.com)