For one, this is an ending of sorts, a last chance. For the other, it is a beginning, a first chance. For Peyton Manning, this game could validate the biggest decision of his life or leave him with a gaping hole in his sparkling college career. For Doug Johnson, Gainesville’s own, it could cement him as Danny Wuerffel’s true heir or doom him to an awful place no Florida quarterback would want to occupy under Steve Spurrier.
They will never be on the field at the same time and probably won’t even encounter each other unless it’s for a postgame handshake.
But in many ways, Saturday’s duel between Tennessee and Florida for control of the Southeastern Conference East is all about Manning and Johnson. This is a huge game, the kind both aniticipated and dreaded, for both players–but for vastly different reasons.
Manning is taking his final shot at trying to beat Florida, the one black mark on his record, after heartbreaking losses in 1995 and 1996. The Heisman Trophy might be riding on his performance, not to mention an unquantifiable amount of peace of mind.
Johnson, a true sophomore with all of six quarters as a starting quarterback under his belt, is facing the first big game of his college career. None of Spurrier’s quarterbacks has ever lost at home to Tennessee. He wouldn’t want to be the first.
No one will ever really know what factors went into Manning’s decision to remain at Tennessee for his senior season rather than take the millions of dollars the NFL was offering.
More specifically, no one will ever know whether this game–and one final shot at the Gators–was a major factor in that decision. To admit that would be, in the event of another Vols loss, admitting failure.
Naturally, the Gators think they know what ran through Manning’s mind this spring.
“I believe he wanted to stay because in the back of his mind he didn’t want to end his college career 0-2 against us,” said Florida linebacker Johnny Rutledge. “And this is his last chance.”
Said Florida strong safety Tony George: “This is a make-or-break game for him.”
But Manning, who has been asked this question a thousand times, said his decision was about so much more than one game.
“I want to win more than anybody else in the world,” Manning said. “But if it doesn’t work out, I’m not going to jump off a bridge like everyone thinks.”
Still, it is obvious Manning’s record-breaking career, Heisman or no, would be tarnished slightly if he fails to win an SEC title. To win an SEC title, however, he has to beat the Gators.
And to beat the Gators, he has to come to the Swamp, where Florida has lost only twice (and never to Tennessee) since the Spurrier era began in 1990.
In many ways, the 1996 game might have been Manning’s best chance. He was the leading Heisman candidate. He had his favorite receiver, Joey Kent, back. An NCAA-record crowd was assembled at Neyland Stadium.
And then Manning was intercepted four times in the first half, and the Gators silenced the stunned crowd by jumping to a 35-0 lead en route to a 35-29 victory. Four TD passes and 492 yards of passing never seemed so hollow.
But the biggest question in Gainesville the last two weeks has been: Is he ready?
A proper noun is unnecessary–it is quite obvious who is meant by “he.” And Doug Johnson isn’t deaf; he hears people talking. Nor is he blind; he sees the concern on people’s faces.
“That’s the biggest thing people are going to ask–how am I going to perform in the big game? Can I keep my head on straight?” Johnson said. “Hopefully, I’ll be ready. I think I’ll be ready.”
Said Spurrier: “We hope he’s ready. He improved a lot from his first game to his second, and we hope he’ll improve from his second to his third. But he has a lot of big games in front of him before we start talking about how good he is.
“He needs to really study his plays, because he needs to be sharp if we’re going to have a good shot at winning.”
More Top Picks Gadgets
Some things will surely be different under Johnson than they were under Wuerffel.
Wuerffel used to audible as many as half the plays in a game. Johnson can’t do that–he simply doesn’t have enough experience. But that means communication between Spurrier and Johnson is far more important than it was between Spurrier and Wuerffel.
Johnson saw the game as an initiation into an elite fraternity, something every pledge has to go through.
“Everyone who has come in here and started at quarterback had to play in a big game early,” he said. “I don’t think it’s any different.”
True enough. But this is also true: Every one of Spurrier’s Florida quarterbacks won their big-game debuts.
Shane Matthews won at Alabama in 1990 with just one game under his belt. Terry Dean beat Alabama in the 1993 SEC championship game.
And four years ago this week, in a situation with juicy parallels to this one, a redshirt freshman made his first college start against a Tennessee squad that stormed into the Swamp with a leading Heisman candidate, Heath Shuler, at quarterback.
And Danny Wuerffel led the Gators to a touchdown on the opening drive, completed 19 of 38 passes for 231 yards and three touchdowns and won 41-34.
But if Johnson starts to feel his shoulders buckle as he warms up for the biggest game of his life, as if the weight of the big, blue-and-orange world is resting squarely on him, all he needs to do is look across the field at the opposing quarterback and realize things could be a lot worse.