15 days to Florida Gator football: #15 Wayne Peace

[Escambia94]

15 days to Florida Gator football! You know what that means...jersey #15 is everyone's favorite quarterback, Wayne Peace. I know. Everyone expected a different #15 to be highlighted, but I wanted to take this time to highlight a lesser known Gator, Wayne Lamar Peace of Lakeland, Florida. At one time, Wayne owned the NCAA record for single-season completion percentage with 70.7% (broken a year later by Steve Young of Brigham Young). He was not known as a downfield passer, but he knew how to work with the talent around him by stretching the field horizontally with high percentage passes. His most memorable pass, a game winner over Miami on September 4, 1982, was nicknamed “the Catch” (not to be confused with Joe Montana to Dwight Clark “the Catch” on January 10, 1982) by Gator fans due to the implications of beating such a powerful Miami team. It was probably called “the Catch”, because it certainly was too ugly to be known as “the Throw”–a fluttering duck that running back James Jones somehow snagged with one hand in the back of the Florida Field end zone to seal the 17-14 victory. Wayne still ranks 2nd in UF history with a career passing percentage of 61.6 for 7,206 yards.

 

[Leakfan12]

WHAT NO TEBOW, ARE YOU F--KING KIDDING ME? Nothing against Peace and also I'll throw in Reidel Anthony but you can't beat one of the greatest college football players of all time. That's like saying Manti T'eo in the greatest player to be number five to play for Notre Dame and not Paul Horning, that Herschel Walker wasn't the greatest 34 in UGA history, that Archie and Peyton Manning wasn't the greatest 18 and 16 in their schools history, and on and on. It would have been understandable if Kerwin Bell was the greatest number 12 instead of Chris Leak especially the U of Florida bosses appeal the penalties of the mid-1980s, maybe the Gators have the 1984 national title (I think some writers didn't vote for Florida to be the national champs because of the penalties, F--K THE NCAA AND THE SEC). It's F--KING BULLS--T THAT TEBOW ISN'T THE 15. DID LWAY INFLUENCE YOU? REX RYAN? MEL KIPER?

 

[DRU2012]

(Laughing) So ya threw us a curve, E-? Had a feeling it may go over like one of those "wounded duck-but-somehow-on-target" Peace throws when I first saw your entry for "15 days..."
Personally, I have fond memories of watching this #15, Wayne Peace, live as he engineered drives for a Gator team that had risen fast and steady from the ashes of an 0-10-and-1 season just 3 years earlier--the only team to BEAT Miami that year, I think (I recall a large sign being flashed on screen from the middle of the crowd--was it in the Orange Bowl?--towards the end of the January game that clinched that first of Miami's "beauty-pageant/championships", reading, "UF 24-Miami 7...WHO'S No. 1???", tho' I may have the year--and almost certainly the score--wrong...).
Meanwhile, not like anyone is forgetting "THE Gator #15"...Just think E- wanted to remember Wayne, too, just as he says, Lf (I DO know what you mean about "Mel Kiper", etc., tho'--put Hoge and a few other of the extreme haters--hell, probably close to a third of the whole "sports journalist fraternity" who have some weird guilt-based resentment or something when it comes to TT--who have seemed to have had a bug-up-their-butts regarding him from the moment he arrived in the spotlight, whose bitterness and deep resentment only seems to grow with time and more attention).

 

[Escambia94]

I am a big fan of Tim Tebow. This countdown of the 100 days to Gator football is an opportunity to highlight players that we only know in pictures by jersey number. Everybody knows Tebow, Harvin, Spikes, and the players who shined when Urban Meyer was head coach.For the countdown I purposely avoided current players and players who shined under Meyer. There are other countdowns for the short-sighted, casual Gator fan that thinks Tebow defines Gator football. Honestly, I respect everything Tebow did but he is not one of my favorite players. I grew up with Wayne Peace and Kerwin Bell. I remember the team going 0-10-1. I remember when our uniforms were predominately orange. It is important to know where we came from.

 

[Leakfan12]

To be fair, Peace was the first Gator QB (as a Gator, Spurrier as on the cover but as a Buccaneer) though it takes more than that to beat out Tebow (in my opinion) especially since in that same season they lost to Vandy (of all teams). Personally I hope you tied Leak and Bell for 12 but it's your list.

 

[DRU2012]

Here's an idea for NEXT year's "countdown list": Player-numbers corresponding to Gators we'd LIKE to forget...Toughee, right? (lol--C'mon, I was JOKING...)

 

[Escambia94]

To be fair, Peace was the first Gator QB (as a Gator, Spurrier as on the cover but as a Buccaneer) though it takes more than that to beat out Tebow (in my opinion) especially since in that same season they lost to Vandy (of all teams). Personally I hope you tied Leak and Bell for 12 but it's your list.

This year is my third or fourth year of doing a list for this forum. In some years I do the best 100 Gators and in some years I highlight players by jersey number.

I have not decided who will be #12 yet. Maybe I can do a tie now that Chris Leak has "aged out". I decided to use Reggie Nelson even though he played for Urban Meyer, so I guess I can use Chris Leak.