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Malik Davis is still learning, but he’s providing exactly the edge Florida’s offense needs
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Jim McElwain wanted Malik Davis to make the veteran play.
With Florida up a touchdown in the final two minutes against Vanderbilt, the offense faced 4th-and-1 on the Commodores’ 39-yard line. McElwain elected to go for it. If the Gators got the first down and stayed in bounds, the game would essentially be over. They could run out the clock and close the door on yet another hard-fought SEC victory.
McElwain put his trust in Davis to deliver the dagger. After all, the true freshman was a key reason why the Gators had the lead in the first place. It didn’t matter to McElwain that in Davis’ first breakaway run of his college career, he was stripped on the goal line after gaining 74 of the 75 yards Florida needed to deliver the dagger to Tennessee two weeks earlier in the SEC opener.
All Davis needed against Vanderbilt was one yard. One quick plunge and that was all she wrote.
Davis did what McElwain wanted him to do. That is, he picked up the first down. But Davis’ dagger didn’t involve staying in bounds and running out the clock. Instead, he scampered the final 38 yards and scored a touchdown to give Florida a two-possession lead.
McElwain wasn’t a fan.
After Davis’ touchdown run, the ESPN cameras caught the frustrated Florida coach motioning “down” on the sidelines. McElwain — as crazy as it sounds given Florida’s offensive struggles — didn’t want a touchdown. He wanted Davis to have the maturity to go down after he got the first down.
At the time, McElwain wasn’t pleased. But four days after the fact, he didn’t blame the true freshman for what he did.
“Don’t put that on him. Put that on me,” McElwain said on the SEC Coaches Teleconference on Wednesday. “Here’s one thing you could see. He finished through the goal line on that one, didn’t he? I think he learned from the first one.”
The fact that Davis was put in those two atypical spots speaks to how impressive the true freshman has been. With three backs expected to be ahead of him on the depth chart in 2017, it’s Davis who leads the Gators in rushing after four games with 319 yards.
Well, more like three games. Davis only got one touch in the season opener against Michigan.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Florida’s offense had more juice in its three-game winning streak. Davis averaged 104 rushing yards and the Gators offense scored 28.3 points per SEC game.
Davis and the Gators still have a long way to go to take that next step. But it wasn’t long ago that Davis was the 3-star Jesuit High School (Tampa, Fla.) recruit who struggled to get big-time offers. As the No. 56 recruit in Florida, he didn’t covet the big-time SEC offers despite the fact that he graduated as the leading rusher in Hillsborough County history with 7,025 career yards.
Malik Davis’ 74-yard run against Tennessee was the Gators’ longest since Trey Burton’s 80-yard TD run against the Vols in 2012.
It wasn’t until the middle of Davis’ senior season that he finally got that coveted Florida offer. He committed to the Gators five days later.
McElwain made sure to point out that Florida wasn’t sleeping on the Tampa tailback.
“First and foremost, he was a highly-touted recruit for us,” McElwain said. “We felt he could do a lot of things and he brings a lot of things to the table and add to the depth at the running back spot. He’s a guy that obviously is really important, as (are) his teammates. He’ll do anything he can to help the team. He’s helping on special teams.
“He’s a part of that young group and freshman class that are taking a lot of reps for us.”
It’s been a bit of a baptism by fire for Davis and the freshman class.
With suspensions to 10 Florida players primarily because of an ongoing credit card fraud investigation, guys like Davis have been key in weathering the storm. Add to that the fact that three Florida quarterbacks were given significant snaps in the first four games, Davis’ emergence couldn’t have come at a better time.
It’s early, but he’s on pace to do something that hasn’t been done at Florida in 22 years. That is, lead the team in rushing while averaging at least 6.5 yards per carry.
As Davis continues to develop his understanding of the position, his 7.4 yards per carry will likely come back down to earth. What does figure to increase is his role in the offense.
He’ll still likely share carries with Lamical Perine and Mark Thompson, both of whom have more experience. Whether he starts or not, it’s clear that with the game on the line, McElwain trusts Davis to get the job done.
Following the first two touchdowns of his college career on Saturday — it should’ve happened two weeks earlier against Tennessee — teammates praised the breakout effort of the rising freshman.
“Now the nation should know about Malik Davis,” Perine said after the Vanderbilt victory. “He’s going to score a lot of touchdowns in The Swamp.”
If that happens, he’s sure to get a different reaction from McElwain.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
