take this with as much salt as you think necessary..

percy harvin’s character issues were a huge deal coming out of high school (he was the #1 player on 2006’s rivals 100).

and then he arrived in gainesville.

the guy was a target of abuse in high school by players/fans of other teams, and he responded poorly. check out his wikipedia for details. i can’t make excuses for him, because the specifics change depending on the source.

but since he came to UF, percy has been urban meyer’s second favorite player (we all know his first favorite). harvin gained a reputation as a big game performer. he was named MVP of the SEC championship game his freshman year, and he was asked to carry the dual role of #1 RB and #1 WR in his sophomore year. tebow’s 2007 stats were insane, but so were percy’s. the joke in gainesville was literally “we only have two plays, the tebow play and the percy play.”

the highlight reel from percy’s sophomore year is absurd. it’s actually a shame that the best videos on youtube have been taken down (two or three by former user ChrisLeakFan4Life). harvin with the ball in his hands is not reggie bush. reggie loves the jab moves, the stutter steps. harvin hits the hole faster than anyone i’ve ever seen in my life, and almost always gets through to the second layer of defenders. harvin runs straight forward to a fault. his running style is basically 100mph in one direction, and personally this is where i think he runs into injury trouble. he doesn’t avoid defenders that are after him so much as he tries to run by them (or run through them). sometimes it looks like he tackles himself by running into a guy that hasn’t even squared up to make the hit.

so you’re wondering why his running style makes any difference. you already have adrian peterson. i think percy will translate well to a steve smith type receiver, but there’s no way anyone really knows. he did have the best hands on the team (see circus catch along the sideline against auburn) and he did relish going over the middle. but UF deploys mostly bubble routes, quick screens and crossing patterns…not the kind of cut backs and post routes used in the NFL. i don’t know if he’ll become an all-star split end, but i can tell you he wasn’t really given the chance at florida because we needed him elsewhere. our running game was tebow and a bunch of nobodies, and meyer’s entire philosophy (thank god) is to create space for his best players, no matter the position. so we rotated percy around, and he was better than everyone at everything he tried. even last season—despite the emergence of chris rainey and jeff demps—when percy missed the SEC championship game, we had to change the entire offense rather than slot someone into his responsibilities. i think percy’s running style is important because i’m hoping you use him in some of the ways tennessee used chris johnson last year. i think he can be an amazing change-of-pace, misdirection athlete, and i’d like to think the vikings will take advantage of his versatility at least somewhat.

the only real worry i have about percy on the next level is his health. his ankles and feet just don’t seem to be capable of handling the pressure he puts on them. as far as i know, he’s never had any serious injuries (ACL tears, etc.), but we’ve dealt with a game here and a game there from 2006 to 2009. on the plus side, all accounts are that he played injured on more than a few occasions…and of course, just like in the BCS championship game last year (“sprain” revealed later to be a stress fracture), as a fan you’d never know. percy’s better was better than your better even at 80 or 90%.

anyhow…a lot of that you can probably find in a scouting report. the most important point i wanted to make was about percy the person…the teammate. we never worried about him. again, i don’t profess to have personal knowledge more than what i’ve seen from interviews with other gators…but percy was a leader in the room and on the field. he celebrated his teammates’ success as much as he celebrated his own (his sideline cheerleading was shown about 2 dozen times during the alabama game this year). i’ve never read a quote where percy complained about the coaching staff or the play-calling. feel free to find one and prove me wrong. ESPN also ran a short profile of percy preparing for the BCS championship game, which i sadly can’t find online. it shows percy working every day in the pool and on the elliptical…6 hours a day…from the SEC championship game through until the team left for miami (he took off christmas day). interviews with trainers during the segment are glowing.

percy the football player is a character guy.
percy the college kid smokes pot. hopefully he grows out of that, but i also know there are a lot of successful pro athletes that are potsmokers.

on the football field, he is a one-of-a-kind talent, he is clutch, and he is accountable to teammates. when todd mcshay and mike mayock talk about “character issues” and don’t cite examples outside of the drug test, i get heated. his football character…at least during his three years at UF…was impeccable.

footnote: i haven’t found the perfect player to use as a comparison to percy. he has an insane cut back move ala MJD. he’s ted ginn quick, but he’s tougher and he’s built. i mean jacked.

and of course the jury is still out what kind of pure WR he’ll be. my expectation is that any team drafting him will have some idea how they’d like to integrate him into the offense. hopefully there are some creative schemes in place to take the pressure off the vikings running game a little bit.

thus ends my ode to percy. he’s a gator hero thanks to our two national championships…neither of which could’ve been won without him.

enjoy having percy in purple and on turf. this was a nice ~45 minute break from my grad school paper. :)