GCMB Poll: Greatest UF football player ever

[Swamp Donkey]

Danny was a great player, leader, and man but Tim's physical ability just took it to another level.

Running ability, obviously.

 

[CGgater]

Danny was Timmy's role model. It's close, but Danny edges out Timmy.

We are blessed to have BOTH in the Gator Family!

 

[NVGator]

Danny was Timmy's role model. It's close, but Danny edges out Timmy.

We are blessed to have BOTH in the Gator Family!

And Michael Jordan's role model was his father. Does that make James Jordan a better player?

 

[Swamp Donkey]

And Michael Jordan's role model was his father. Does that make James Jordan a better player?

Did James Jordan win 3 SECG and one NC?

To me it also matters some that Danny went out a winner. If his last big game was losing to FSU or Bammer and then doing whatever in an irrelevent bowl, he'd be less compelling. He won it all in dramatic fashion and left on top.

 

[78]

FYI

The weighted criteria:

1) 40% Performance on the field
2) 20% Leadership
3) 10% How it all translated to the team
4) 20% Conduct off the field
5) 10% National attention brought to the program

 

[78]

Emmitt Smith with one vote. I told y'all he was nothing special.

 

[Swamp Donkey]

Emmitt Smith with one vote. I told y'all he was nothing special.

You know to the internet QBs, sacks and interceptions are all that matters.

 

[78]

You know to the internet QBs, tweets and interceptions are all that matters.

Agree.

 

[Zambo]

We won the 08 SECCG without Harvinz.

 

[78]

We won the 08 SECCG without Harvinz.

We backed into the national championship game.

 

[chuckmcphail]

Spurrier. Won a Heisman. Brought our program out of the dark ages, and did more with less than any coach ever. Put UF as a top tier program throughout the 90s and early 00s. That got players like the ones mentioned to come here and play. Gave the swamp its name. He stills continued to contribute to the program, and my opinion should be part of the coaching staff in someway.

 

[Captain Sasquatch]

Are you seriously asking members on THIS forum to quantify their thoughts on the greatest Gator football player using percentages??

 

[78]

Are you seriously asking members on THIS forum to quantify their thoughts on the greatest Gator football player using percentages??

Only if you'll help me explain to them how they work.

 

[NVGator]

Spurrier. Won a Heisman. Brought our program out of the dark ages, and did more with less than any coach ever. Put UF as a top tier program throughout the 90s and early 00s. That got players like the ones mentioned to come here and play. Gave the swamp its name. He stills continued to contribute to the program, and my opinion should be part of the coaching staff in someway.

You're Air Force, right? I played golf the other day with a retired Chief Master Sergeant. Really nice man. Now he's an ROTC Instructor at a local High School.

 

[stephenPE]

Greatest............of all time...........Fla had a football player 60+ years ago who was as good as any ever and was probably as close to Jim Thorpe as
we ever had.................

Rick Casares was born in Tampa, Florida in 1931.[1] When he was 7 years old, his father was killed in a gang shooting; his mother sent him to live with an aunt and uncle in Paterson, New Jersey.[2] At 15, Casares became a Golden Gloves boxingchampion in the 160-pound division.[2][3] When he was offered a professional boxing contract, his mother refused to permit it, and he returned to Tampa.[3]

From the age of 15, Casares lived in West Tampa with his mother, and he attended Thomas Jefferson High School in Tampa,[4] where his teachers introduced him to high school sports as a way to keep him in school.[3] The Jefferson coaches discovered the 190-pound, six-foot-one-inch freshman when he picked up a javelin for the first time and threw it.[3] Casares played high school football, basketball, and baseball for the Jefferson Dragons, and he was also a track and field athlete.[2]He was an all-state football and basketball player, and the Dragons won the city football championship in 1948 and 1949.[3]

The Tampa Tribune recognized Casares as one the Tampa Bay area's 100 greatest athletes of the previous century in 1999.[3] In 2007, fifty-seven years after he graduated from high school, the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) recognized him as one of the thirty-three all-time greatest Florida high school football players of the last 100 years by naming him to its "All-Century Team."[5]

College career[edit]
After graduating from high school, Casares received an athletic scholarship to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, where he played fullback for coach Bob Woodruff's Florida Gators football team from 1951 to 1953.[6] Casares quickly became the star rusher of the Gators' backfield.[7] As a 210-pound, six-foot-two-inch sophomore in 1952, he scored the first touchdown of the Gators' first bowl game, a 14–13 victory over the Tulsa Golden Hurricane in the January 1, 1953 Gator Bowl,[7] and was a second-team All-Southeastern Conference (SEC) selection and an honorable mention All-American.[6][8] In 1953, he was a team captain.[6] Woodruff ranked Casares as the Gators' best back and one of their three best kickers of the 1950s.[9]

Casares was also a member of coach John Mauer's Florida Gators basketball team, and led the team in scoring and rebounding with 14.9 points and 11.3 rebounds as a sophomore in 1951–52, and 15.5 points and 11.5 rebounds as a junior in 1952–53.[10] In basketball, he was a third-team All-SEC selection in 1952; as basketball team captain in 1953, he received second-team All-SEC honors.
n 2007, fifty-seven years after he graduated from high school, the Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) recognized him as one of the thirty-three all-time greatest Florida high school football players of the last 100 years by naming him to its "All-Century Team."[5]
Casares was selected in the second round (eighteenth pick overall) of the 1954 NFL Draft by the Chicago Bears,[13] but was offered a $20,000 annual contract with Canadian Football League's Toronto Argonauts.[2] Instead, he accepted owner George Halas's $10,000 offer to become a member of the Chicago Bears,[2] and after fulfilling his military service obligations,[5] he played for the Bears from 1955 to 1964.[14] In the fourth game of the 1955 season, against the Baltimore Colts, he ran for an 81-yard touchdown.[2] He finished his rookie season with 672 yards in 12 games, and earned a spot in the Pro Bowl.[2]

Casares led Chicago in rushing from 1955 through 1960. In 1956, Casares led the NFL in rushing with 235 carries for 1,126 yards.[15] At the time, this was the second most yards gained in a single season in the NFL, short of the NFL single-season record by only 20 yards.[2] Behind Casares' hard-nosed rushing, the Bears advanced to the 1956 NFL Championship Game. However, the Bears' championship game opponents, the New York Giants, completely stifled Casares and crushed the Bears, 47–7. He would, however, win an NFL Championship as a member of the 1963 squad.[16][17]

That said Timmy/Danny and SOS are my holy Trinity for GOAT at UF...............

 

[stephenPE]

Aw crap........I got Emmitt right there with them. He was all we had for a few years and they STILL COULD not stop him...........Imagine him on an SOS team. HE averages 10 yds a carry

 

[LeeForThree]

It's Percy...and Tebow tied at 1 imo.

 

[Swamp Donkey]

It's Percy...and Tebow tied at 1 imo.

I can tell how young some of you are.

 

[GR8 2B]

Wuerffel-
My favorite player? Yep. Compelling? Yep. All around good dude? Yep. 4! SEC titles? Yep. National Title? Yep. Heisman? Yep. The best choice using your given parameters? Tebow.

This. I chose Danny before reading the criteria, but once I read them, #5 put Tim on top

 

[Gator by the Sea]

All the others are great Gators, but there's a reason there are three statues outside BHG Stadium...Danny, Timmy, and Spurrier are the greatest.