On the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday, Florida Gators senior receiver Louis Murphy dropped his head for just a second when he was asked where he planned to spend the day.
"I'm going home,"
said Murphy, who will rejoin the Gators today for the trip to Tallahassee for Saturday's game against Florida State, "and spend some time with my family."
Florida players took a break from preparing for the Seminoles after an early practice Thursday. Those who live within four hours of their hometowns were allowed to spend the holiday with friends and family. The team regroups at 2 p.m. today in Gainesville.
Murphy realized long before making the trek to St. Petersburg that the person he wanted to be there the most won't be with him. His mother, Filomena "Mina"
Murphy, passed away in February after a battle with breast cancer. She was 47.
"It's been rough, man,"
Murphy said. "Spending the holiday without her is going to be rough this year. But knowing that she's in a better place and she's not suffering anymore, that's all that really matters."
Murphy scored the first touchdown of last Saturday's 70-19 win against The Citadel on Senior Day, his last game at Florida Field. After gathering the ball in, he stopped, looked to the sky and pointed. While Mina won't be with Murphy this weekend, her spirit has remained.
Murphy extended his streak to 24 straight games with at least one reception, against the Bulldogs. The team captain caught touchdown passes of 32 and 14 yards against the Seminoles in last year's 45-12 win, the fourth in a row for UF vs. FSU.
Murphy said his family has actually grown "much closer"
after his mother passed away.
"We already were a close family, it just made us that much closer,"
Murphy said. "Just going through this has really, just really (shown me) the significance of life, that you can be gone any second."
The key.
It may sound corny to some, but Gators coach Urban Meyer genuinely believes chemistry is what has made this team so successful.
"If it's just good players, then I think we would have won every game we played last year,"
Meyer said. "A lot of teams would be able to do that. When you have family or business issues, it's usually something that's happening within the family or business. It's almost always personnel-related, chemistry issues, someone doing something they're not supposed to do, something tearing that team apart from within."
"We don't have that issue. I saw the potential for the chemistry early because we've eliminated a lot of the issues on this team. I see it when I look into their eyes. If someone won't look into my eyes, then there's a problem there. They look at me. I don't have to say, 'Sit back, put your shoulders back and look at me.' They do that. In the past, it's been a little bit of an issue. This team looks at you and they want to talk about what we have to do to get better."
No flip.
Tim Tebow, a team captain, hasn't assumed the role of going on the field for the coin flip before games. When asked about it earlier in the week, Meyer chuckled.
UF almost always defers to the second half, going on defense first when it wins the pregame coin toss, anyway. The Gators like to let the defense set the tempo at the start of a game when they get the chance. By giving the opponent the ball first, it also means Florida gets the ball to open the second half. Some consider that a great momentum advantage.
"He's a captain,"
Meyer said of Tebow. "He never called heads or tails, and he's OK with that. I'd rather he be in that locker room talking about what we talk about rather than saying, 'defer.' We've got guys to do that."
