Tebow’s teammates revere their leader

It’s been an interesting week in South Florida. Maybe Nic Harris has been the most interesting Sooner.

Harris decided to be a pain in the butt awhile back. Ask him a question, and he’ll cop an attitude.

Back in Norman, I asked him what did he think was the problem on kickoff coverage. His response: “I am neither coach nor critic, therefore I cannot answer.”

Here in Florida, he offered some of the same kind of answers. “I am not an electrician, I am not a mechanic, I am not a carpenter. I don’t fix things.”

Oh, OK. Hope that attitude doesn’t prevail when his coaches ask him to fill a certain gap on the kickoff unit.

But my favorite Harris quote of the week came when he was asked if it was cool to be a part of only the second game in history that matches Heisman Trophy winners. “Cool for who?” Harris asked. “Cool for fans? Cool for critics. Not really cool for us. It won’t be cool until we get a win. I could care less who won the Heisman.”

I don’t think that’s the mindset of most Sooners, and I promise you it’s not the mindset of the Florida Gators, who adore, if not worship, their quarterback, 2007 Heisman winner Tim Tebow.

When Tebow made his now-legendary vow after the loss to Ole Miss in September, he entered mythical status in Gatorland. And that includes with his teammates.

Flanker Louis Murphy: “It meant a lot to me that my quarterback could stand up as a man of character, and when our backs were against the wall and when everybody doubted us out, he stood up and was like, ‘We’re going to make it.’ Everybody felt the same way in the locker room.”

Tebow actually delivered the message to the media first, in the press conference after the loss. Then the next day at a team meeting, he repeated his vow to not let down the Gators again

“He got us energized,” said offensive tackle Phil Trautwein. “He kind of cried a little bit. His face was all red. He was ready to go.”

Offensive tackle Jason Watkins said, “Seeing our quarterback stepping up like that, that’s a great motivation for our O-line and especially for our team. We took it as a chip on our shoulder, and each day we work even harder in practice to make sure we can uphold the promise that he made. And from then on we took it on ourselves that we’ve just got to go out and work to our potential.”