When I first arrived at Florida, I weighed 188 pounds at my first physical, and I weighed 210 when I started my redshirt freshman season. That's a weight gain of 22 pounds from January 2014 to September 2015. The
story that I gained 40-something pounds just isn't true. It's laughable.
When I first met with the training staff at Florida and with Coach (Will) Muschamp, the idea was to put on smart weight and keep my athletic ability. I just wasn't physically ready for the pounding quarterbacks take at this level. So we decided I would redshirt and try to bulk up for 2015.
I wasn't eating anything special. My roommate (kicker Austin Hardin) and I were obsessive about eating healthy—you know, grilled chicken, vegetables and things like that. Lots of Gatorade protein drinks. I wasn't throwing down McDonald's.
Then Coach Muschamp gets fired and the new staff comes in, and we're basically on the same regimen. But because Austin and I were obsessed with eating healthy, we noticed that those Gatorade drinks are loaded with sugar and carbs. There's nothing wrong with them, but we didn't want that in our bodies.
So we went to a store in Gainesville called Total Nutrition and got some protein powder. We used that for a few months, and it seemed to work. I was putting on smart weight and was feeling healthier and more fit than I ever had. The third time we went in to buy the powder, in June 2015, the associate behind the counter, who knew us because we had been in there before, said, "You guys should try this." It was called Ligandrol.
He said it was a new thing that helped your muscles take in more protein and helped them recover faster. So we went home, and the first thing we did was look on the internet. We're not stupid; we wanted to look it up and make sure it was all clear. I looked at every NCAA site, and many other sites, to see if it was healthy for you. I wasn't going to put anything in my body that wasn't legal and wasn't healthy.
I checked each ingredient on the bottle to see if it was on the NCAA banned list. I did my research and was confident in it. What I didn't do is ask the trainers at Florida if it was cleared. I still don't know why I didn't. It's no one's fault but mine.
Ligandrol was not on the
list of banned substances. But we came to find out—after our appeal to the NCAA—that it was added in August of that year. So I feel like I was given a year suspension for not telling the trainers what I was taking, and if I did tell them, they would've told me then that it wasn't on the list.
Editor's note: Ligandrol was not specifically named on any NCAA banned list until 2016-2017, but each year the NCAA's list of banned drugs clearly states, "Note to Student-Athletes: There is no complete list of banned substances. Do not rely on this list to rule out any supplement ingredient. Check with your athletics department staff prior to using a supplement." NCAA spokesman Chris Radford told Bleacher Report, "Ligandrol has never been allowed. Any substance that is chemically related to the anabolic agents class, even if it is not specifically listed as an example, is banned."
I was going through the season with no idea what could happen. Then in October, after I started and won five games, I was on the drug-test list. I had never been on the list before. They said I was randomly chosen.