SI's Top 20 Scouting Reports

1	Florida Gators" title="Florida Gators"/>	Florida SEC	2009 Schedule

This article appears in the August 17, 2009 issue of Sports Illustrated

The team to beat is so hungry to repeat that it refuses to be outworked.

Minutes after the final whistle of spring practice had blown, coach Urban Meyer told strength assistant Mickey Marotti to put the defending national champions through the toughest offseason Florida had ever had. "We'll make it so hard," Meyer said, "that they're going to have a hard time picking up the Street & Smith's magazine that tells them how good they are."

On a July morning so humid that the air felt like crab bisque, panting senior linebacker Ryan Stamper was asked whether Marotti had carried out Meyer's orders. "Stamp, was it hard today?" Marotti asked with the hint of a smile. "Was it hard?"

Of course it was hard. It had to be. With all 11 starters back on defense and a Heisman-winning quarterback with two national titles on his résumé, the Gators are more loaded than any other defending national champion since the 2005 USC team -- and that's why they must outwork everyone else in July. The Trojans were denied a second straight consensus national title when they lost to Texas in the Rose Bowl. Florida doesn't want to fall short in its bid to become the first outright repeat national champion since Nebraska in 1994 and '95.

"This year," Stamper says, "everyone has the mind-set that if we don't win the national championship, [the season] is a failure."

A sample drill from Marotti's program: The blocking sled that Stamper drives at 60-yard intervals at the end of the workout, after all the running and lifting, is loaded with only 180 pounds. To Stamper's already wobbly legs, it feels like 1,000. But, say, in the fourth quarter against LSU, Stamper will be able to fight through exhaustion, shed his blocker and make the tackle. Similarly, sophomore wideout Deonte Thompson -- one of the players Meyer hopes can replace breakaway talent Percy Harvin -- will burn a tired cornerback, or quarterback Tim Tebow will blast through the line for a first down on fourth-and-short.

If the Gators win it all, they will have succeeded in part because Marotti did his job over the summer. On that July morning Stamper answered Marotti's question. "Yeah, it's hard," the player told the coach. "But it's getting easier."

-- Andy Staples

Issue date: August 17, 2009