24 days to Florida Gator football: #24 Fred Weary

[Escambia94]

Joseph Frederick Weary played cornerback for Steve Spurrier's Florida Gators from 1994 to 1997, where he was a key member of the 1996 Bowl Alliance National Championship team. Fred was first team All SEC in that championship season as well as his senior season. Fred was named team captain his senior season, and was named a Consensus All American in a season where he intercepted an NCAA leading six passes. Fred finished his career as the Gators' interception leader with 15, and is top five with 35 blocked passes.

 

[DRU2012]

Escambia94
This year's "homestretch" in the GE's annual "Run-up to the Season", courtesy once again of our inimitable Escambia94, has been overshadowed somewhat of late (at least for me--and I suspect I'm far from alone on this) by what has become JUST as "annual", and this time seemingly especially acute, string of practice-injuries.
I mean, it's getting to a point where you KNOW they've gotta go thru' it to get the team ready, but DAMN!--is this "normal"??? Our O-line, finally expected to be a jelled-unit with depth, with Hallapio and Garcia down is gonna start the season at least with the usual question marks once again, we lose Debose completely (which is NOT the "tragedy", at least for the team, that some are making it out to be--but doesn't help the receiving corps, obviously, and DOES hurt us running back kicks), and now we've lost some big pieces in our defensive backfield again as well.
This "homestretch", then, is doing us in--and with a schedule that is going to turn out to be one of the toughest in the country, mark my words, well, I'm less-optimistic than I was a month ago...
Sorry to go off-topic AND on a bummer, E-, but it's on my mind. Reading and thinking about teams past and the great players that stand out among them, I find myself wondering, as I say, if this is a common "effect" as the season approaches eEVERY year, or if it indeed IS some sort of weird, escalating trend--for us, at least. Any thoughts? Do the numbers-of-players injured, and the severity of those injuries (and how often they occur as the start-of-season approaches) actually reflect such a "trend"?

 

[Leakfan12]

Whose the lead receiver now?

 

[Escambia94]

@leakfan: The lead receiver has not changed. The leading receiver on the roster is still Dunbar. The depth chart now looks like this:

• X
  • 1 Quinton Dunbar 6-2 194 R-Jr
  • 11 Demarcus Robinson 6-2 204 Fr
• Z
  • 13 Latroy Pittman 6-0 207 So
  • 4 Andre Debose 6-0 187 R-Sr
  • 83 Solomon Patton 5-9 168 Sr
• F
  • 8 Trey Burton 6-2 224 Sr
  • 13 Latroy Pittman 6-0 207 So

Note that Debose actually did not improve his position from last year--#2 Z-receiver. As much as I hate to say it, Debose has not been living up to his potential since he arrived. He has been through two season-ending injuries now.
DRU2012: From what I have gathered about other teams, they all go through injuries this time of year. This year we are seeing more freak injuries, such as Driskel's appendix issues and Jones' virus issue, but in terms of injuries and attitude problems the Gators are doing better than LSU.

 

[DRU2012]

Yeah--note that I'm pretty well on your wavelength re Debose, E--Oh, I'm sorry he doesn't get a chance to "finally prove himself" this year after all, but he PUT himself in that marginal-value category on his own, for the most part, and frankly, I could list as many possible outright BENEFITS as drawbacks to having him unquestionably out-of-the-picture: a "disaster" it is NOT, imo.
Now, Halapio and Garcia down on the O-line, Johnson added to the list of losses in the defensive backfield (in HIS case a season-ender just as he's coming off his soph red-shirt with a lot of hope and promise at a position without a lot of experienced depth), the "out-of-left-field afflictions" like those for JD and Jones setting two KEY offensive components back a few weeks in THEIR schedules, and on and on, well, as I say: Consider our schedule, not just WHO we play but when and WHERE, and you begin to see why in this, OUR particular version of an "SEC-plus Schedule", we'll once again be facing one of the single toughest strings, beginning to end, in this, the last season of the BCS.

 

[Dale J. Rodriguez]

I agree with Escambia, Debose was supposed to be our next Percy Harvin. in HS he actually looked much better than Harvin.

I hate to see him out for the season, Mack Brown was quoted as saying that this was his best camp ever.