Florida's run of success at the tight end position

Since 2000, the Gators have actually put together a pretty good record of placing tight ends into the NFL. As for how well they've stacked up with other teams over that time frame, here's the list of college programs to have at least five tight ends drafted over the last 14 years:

Miami, (Fla.): 9
Notre Dame: 8
Iowa: 7
Florida: 6
Penn State: 6
Stanford: 6
Virginia: 6
Wisconsin: 6
Georgia: 5
Oregon: 5
Tennessee: 5

213 tight ends been selected in the NFL Draft between 2000 and 2013. Among the interesting trends and numbers to develop over that time period:

– Nebraska-Omaha (2) has produced more picks than Nebraska (1). On a similar note, Texas A&M and Texas A&M-Kingsville have both produced the same number of draftees (1).

– Florida State hasn't seen a single tight end drafted since 2000. In fact, you have to go all the way back to 1994 (Lonnie Johnson) to find a tight end from FSU who was drafted into the NFL.

– Idaho (3) and Rice (3) have been surprising fertile grounds for developing tight ends in recent years as well.

The six Florida tight ends to hear their name called since 2000 are as follows:

2000 Erron Kinney (3rd Round, 68th overall, Tennessee Titans)
2003 Aaron Walker (5th Round, 161st overall, San Francisco 49ers)
2004 Ben Troupe (2nd Round, 40th overall, Tennessee Titans)
2009 Cornelius Ingram (5th Round, 153rd overall, Philadelphia Eagles)
2010 Aaron Hernandez (4th Round, 113rd overall, New England Patriots)
2013 Jordan Reed (3rd Round, 85th overall, Washington Redskins)

Although Steve Spurrier was not known for going to the tight end much during his time in Gainesville (aside from Kirk Kirkpatrick's All-SEC campaign during Spurrier's first year as coach at UF in 1990), the first three tight ends drafted (Kinney, Walker, Troupe) were all brought in during his tenure as coach.

The success of this group is a mixed bag. Despite playing just three seasons, Hernandez is actually the most prolific of this group. Kinney lasted the longest at the pro level, playing all seven of his NFL seasons in Tennessee. Walker and Troupe bounced around with multiple teams, never really catching on with any one squad. Ingram never played in a regular season game due to lingering knee issues resulting from his days at Florida. Reed is off to a good start, just four games into his rookie campaign in Washington.

Certainly, the tight end position for UF is a weakness that will have to be corrected in the following months. However, the good news for the Florida staff is that the statistics above provide an easy selling point to the top recruits they are pursuing (Bryce Dixon and Deandre Goolsby among them) that Florida has done a good job in recent years of evaluating and developing players at the position, and getting them in a position to move on to the next level and be productive as well.

ACL Injuries: They're a fact of life in football, people

Shortly after Florida announced the loss of Dominique Easley for the season to a torn ACL, I made a prediction as to what the response of UF fans would be.

Re: Florida's rash of ACL injuries -- really just a case of bad luck for #UF, although I'm SURE someone will try to read deeper into it.
— Justin Wells (@justinlwells) September 25, 2013

Remember when Florida had a rash of knee injuries -- especially at the safety position -- in the summer of '08? Sometimes it happens.
— Justin Wells (@justinlwells) September 25, 2013

I wanted to expand on this matter a bit more in-depth. That 2008 team, which experienced a rash of ACL injuries, still went on to win a national championship. I'm not predicting the same fate for Florida this year, but the Gators can overcome their injury issues to have some semblance of a "succesful" season, depending on your definition of "success." The knee injuries the 2008 team encountered included the following:

– Safeties Dorian Munroe and John Curtis suffered ACL injuries during offseason conditioning drills in July. Combined with the loss of Jamar Hornsby (for some very notable off-the-field transgressions), UF went into the season with a razor-thin depth chart at safety.

– Expected to be a major factor on offense in 2008, Cornelius Ingram tore an ACL just two days into preseason camp for the Gators that August.

–  Not even a week later, reserve offensive lineman Jim Barrie and backup linebacker Brendan Beal would incur ACL injuries just two days apart, adding to the misery for UF fans heading into the season.

This fall for Florida, the Gators have seen an assortment of season-ending injuries. A torn labrum for Chaz Green, a surgically repaired shoulder for Nick Washington as well, a broken leg for Jeff Driskel, and ACL injuries for Andre Debose, Matt Rolin, and now Easley. It's been a rough two months in terms of health for Florida. If the Gators can avoid the injury bug from here on out, they still have a shot at a pretty good season. But if not, well, things could get ugly in a hurry.

For the fans that want to blame this on the Strength & Conditioning coaches: please stop. Everyone was singing their praises last fall. Did they suddenly just forget how to do their job? This is simply a freakish streak of bad luck that no one could prevent. There was nothing different for which Jeff Dillman and his staff could have done to prevent any of these injuries from happening. In fact, two of the ailments (Rolin and Washington) were simply re-injuries of previous issues both players had dating back to last season, when they were still in high school. Hopefully, both freshmen have received proper treatment and won't have any issues moving forward as they rehab during their redshirt seasons.

As for the notion that an indoor practice facility (or "IPF," for the football facility diehards) could have prevented Easley's injury, I'll just agree to disagree. Easley could have torn his ACL walking down the street and stepping off (or onto) a curb in the wrong fashion. It's just one of those things. Unless he was pushed around in a wheelchair all day, in a protective bubble, and didn't play football, there was no way to prevent this from happening. It was a non-contact injury. One of those freak things. Hopefully Easley's surgery goes well, and he rehabs quickly enough to put himself in a position to sneak into the bottom of the first round of next May's NFL Draft. That's really about all we can hope for at this point.

This is a bitter pill to swallow. I get it. Until Easley's injury, there was still a sense that this team could accomplish anything on its list of goals heading into a season. Despite the injuries. This one is different. It happened to a guy who came back for all the right reasons, and who was playing himself into a potential All-American. In many ways, Easley was the guy who stirred the drink of this 2013 squad. He'll still be there in spirit. The question is, can the other guys on this vaunted Florida defense step up in his absence? We'll get the first indications from Lexington just two days from now.