Douglas DeFelice-USA TODAY Sports
Gators Safety Donovan Stiner Is Finding His Groove
Florida Gators’ safety Donovan Stiner has been a player that has taken some heat this season. The Gators are one of the few teams in the country that are lucky enough to be so loaded in the secondary, that they can rotate players regularly throughout the games.
While rotating the safeties, a lot of people felt that Stiner was the weakest player in that rotation. Pro Football Focus had Stiner ranked as the worst of the four safeties rotating in and out a couple of weeks ago as our Donavon Keiser pointed out. Stiner was also a victim to fans on social media calling for him to be benched earlier in the season; however, those fans should delete their tweets. Stiner has undoubtedly had his struggles earlier in the season, but the junior from Houston, Texas is finally finding his groove in the Florida secondary.
Stiner currently leads the Gators’ defense with four interceptions. He had two interceptions in the middle of the season against Towson and Auburn. He added two more to his total in his best game of the season against Vanderbilt.
The game at Vanderbilt was bigger than the shout-out Pro Football Focus gave him on Twitter because it was arguably one of the biggest games of the season for Florida.
It was Dan Mullen’s toughest test as the Gators’ head coach and Florida needed to bounce back and keep fighting as a team. Stiner was the leader of the pack on defense for that bounce back, as he flew around the field making plays.
Being a leader has become a theme for Stiner. If you watch his interviews or read the quotes from his interviews, Stiner is always being a great teammate. He supports struggling teammates (via Edgar Thompson of the Orlando Sentinel), or talking about how the team can't dwell on the loss to Georgia so they can get back on track (via Mark Long of the Associated Press). He practices what he preaches too, as the Vanderbilt game showed that after the loss in the "Cocktail Party."
I was interested to see how he would respond to a dominant game against Vanderbilt and Stiner did not disappoint. His box score may not show you how good he was on Saturday, but the 6-1, 203 pound safety was impressive and continued to show his improvements as the season has progressed.
Stiner flew around the field and made plays all game. He was breaking up passes, making tackles, and flashing on the film. Sometimes the best thing a player can do is just do their job, and Stiner did just that. He had one miscue in the game while in coverage, but outside of that Stiner did everything Todd Grantham asked of him.
After being ranked by PFF as the worst safety on the Gators one month ago, Stiner has played so well that he brought his grade up from a 58.4 to a 74.4. That puts Stiner as the No. 2 overall safety on the roster this season, only trailing Shawn Davis (79.2) and cementing his improvement for this defense. Pro Football Focus also has Stiner as the highest-graded safety for Florida in coverage, with an 84.6 grade (Davis is second with 80.8).
Florida has one game left in the regular season, a matchup with Florida State on November 30th. Look for Stiner to finish the regular season even stronger and continue to make plays for the Gators defense. Also worth noting: Stiner is trending upward at the end of 2019, but he will almost certainly be back in 2020, which bodes well for the Gators and their defense in the future as well.
