Florida's Demps a big-play threat against Penn State

TAMPA, Fla. - After a spring and summer in which he established himself as the best young sprinter in the United States, Jeff Demps was eager to get back to football and establish himself as a threat out of the backfield for Florida.

However, an errant step by a teammate on the offensive line in mid-September at Tennessee left him with a sprained left foot. The injury worsened into a stress reaction that kept him out of two games and limited him in five others.

For the first time since the end of the regular season, Demps returned to contact drills in practice this week for the Gators while preparing for Saturday's Outback Bowl game against Penn State. He told Florida beat reporters Monday that he thought his foot was "85 percent."

"That's the first time he's practiced in eight or nine weeks, maybe 10 weeks," Florida coach Urban Meyer said Friday. "You're just trying to save him to get those 10 carries or five carries in a game."

When you've won three NCAA individual track championships as Demps has - one with a blistering 9.96 seconds in the 100-meter dash at last June's national outdoors - just one or two plays could be overwhelming to the Nittany Lions.

The week before he got hurt, Demps, a 5-foot-8, 190-pound junior, accounted for career highs in rushing (139 yards on 11 carries), all-purpose yards (255), and a single kickoff return (54) against South Florida. But he averaged fewer than 32 yards rushing in the seven games in which he played after the injury.

He still finished with a team-high 531 yards rushing for the season, but Meyer knows there could have been more.

"For those that know Jeff Demps as a person, it's been frustration," Meyer said. "You just feel sorry for the guy because there's not a guy that prepares for a season harder than Jeff Demps, and there's not a guy that we needed more on this team than Jeff Demps.

"What turned out to be a sprained foot . . . and he kept trying and kept trying and it turned into a stress reaction, and that just wiped him out. That was a tough injury for him and for our team."

Demps isn't the only track star on the Gators football team. Redshirt junior wide receiver Chris Rainey, who ran the leadoff leg on Florida's national championship 4x100-meter relay team that was anchored by Demps, rushed for 300 yards and caught 22 passes despite serving a five-game suspension.

Rainey had been suspended after his arrest for allegedly sending a threatening text message to what was described as an on-again, off-again girlfriend. The charge has been reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor.

The speed doesn't just begin and end on offense. Redshirt freshman Andre Debose returned two kickoffs for touchdowns during the 2010 regular season.