Scottsdale, Ariz. – Every athlete has his Kodak moment. Florida quarterback Chris Leak, unfortunately, has his 7-Eleven disposable camera moment.
It is Sept. 23 at steamy Florida Field. The Gators are struggling to beat lowly Kentucky and have a coach in Urban Meyer who is trying to pound a square peg, Leak, into a round hole, the spread offense. Freshman phenom Tim Tebow, Meyer’s perfect, handpicked round peg, has just rushed three times for 62 yards to the Kentucky 6.
Back comes Leak to replace Tebow. Down come the boos. Two failed plays, a penalty and an interception later and the fans’ ensuing venom reasserts Leak’s reputation as the most unpopular quarterback in the Southeastern Conference.
It’s 3 1/2 months later and the fallen one-time savior of the Florida program has risen again. He is one win over top-ranked Ohio State (12-0) in tonight’s 6:30 BCS national championship in Glendale, Ariz., from becoming picture-perfect.
Not bad for a guy who is still not the most popular quarterback on his own team.
It has been a long and strange journey for Leak. He arrived four years ago as the phenom who could save coach Ron Zook’s job. Leak couldn’t, and many in Florida felt he shouldn’t have kept his own job. Tebow arrived last spring with so much hype the entire student section at Florida Field chanted his name during his official visit last season.
Yet the one-two punch – and in Tebow’s case, we do mean punch – has been a huge factor in second-ranked Florida going 12-1 and reaching the precipice of its second national title in 100 years of football.
“Chris Leak had a very fine year against the top defenses in America,” Meyer said. “… I will tell you what: If he wins this game, he will be one of the two top quarterbacks to play at Florida. You are measured by wins and championships.”
If Leak were measured by stats, he would never be booed. He led the SEC in passer rating (144.92) and touchdowns (29) as a sophomore, and has the school record with 11,000 passing yards and 870 completions and is second with 87 touchdown passes.
But he appeared totally ill-suited for the spread offense when Meyer arrived from Utah last season. The spread is basically a balanced offense with a quarterback option package. Tax returns are faster than Leak running through a hole.
Meyer and his staff adjusted. They used him less on the option and more passing on the move.
“We came in the first day and said, ‘Hey, you’re going to have a lot of input in things,”‘ said offensive coordinator Dan Mullen, who joined Meyer from Utah. “‘We need to see what you do well, what you like, what you’re comfortable with.”‘
Keep in mind Leak has always been a football scholar. He grew up in Charlotte, N.C., with his father, Curtis, the Green Bay Packers’ 11th-round draft pick in 1976. Curtis Leak started the Carolina Youth Football League, and Chris and his older brother, C.J., also a quarterback, would borrow VHS tapes from his teammates’ parents to study.
Chris Leak won 46 straight games and three straight state titles at Independence High, but losing 10 games in two years at Florida cost Zook his job. Leak faced a scary future. New coach. New offense. New expectations. But he had a new attitude.
“(Meyer) called me not too far after he took the job,” Leak said. “He said he’d build the offense around me. That gives you a lot of confidence as a player going into a season having a new coach.”
However, he spent so much time studying film his teammates never knew him. Then in comes Tebow, the anti-Leak. He was fast (3,169 yards and 63 rushing touchdowns at Ponte Vedra, Fla., Nease High School). He was vocal (every summer he’d join his father, Bob, an evangelical missionary, in the Philippines where Tim would make destitute orphans laugh and preach to crowds of up to 10,000 Filipinos).
He was also very popular. He arrived with a Florida state-record 12,960 yards total offense, 9,940 passing yards, 159 TDs and 631 completions. Center Steve Rissler remembers Tebow’s first night out in Gainesville, when coeds would walk up and sit on his lap. He is so impossibly good-looking, he was asked to judge sorority pageants.
Tebow, home-schooled and from a family so religious his father made him memorize scripture before he could suit up for youth games, never responded.
However, he has responded on the field. At 6-feet-3 and 230 pounds with strength that can bench press 225 pounds 25 times, he is used in the shotgun for straight jaunts up the middle. He leads Florida with seven touchdown runs and has four TD passes. In a 23-10 win over No. 9 LSU, Tebow had two TD passes and a TD run on only 11 touches.
Leak never complains.
“Tim has a certain package of plays that he runs,” Mullen said. “Chris has never stormed into my office and said, ‘Hey, on fourth-and-1 I need to run the iso play right up the middle.’ He looks at me and says, ‘It looks pretty good for Tim to do that.”‘
Now all Tebow and Leak must do is outperform Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith. Florida can’t win if the Buckeyes force Leak into mistakes common during his career. But one more win and Chris Leak and Florida will be national champions.
Picture that.
Staff writer John Henderson can be reached at 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
