Land O'Lakes receiver Eddy Gibbs is trying to minimize the errors that cost him time this season.
By JAMAL THALJI
Published November 18, 2003
LAND O'LAKES - Guilt. Shame. Remorse. Regret. They can be powerful emotions, ones that have fueled Land O'Lakes split end Eddy Gibbs in his biggest games.
He was suspended for the first quarter of the Oct. 3 River Ridge game for violating team rules. When the senior entered, he caught two touchdowns from Drew Weatherford in a 34-31 overtime win. Gibbs was held out of the first quarter of the Oct. 24 Ocala Forest game, too. He responded with three touchdown catches in a 28-13 victory.
Nov. 11 against Hudson, on Senior Night, Gibbs sat out for violating more unspecified team rules.
He respond with a career night in Friday's region quarterfinal playoff game against Auburndale, catching eight passes for a 156 yards and a touchdown in a 24-19 victory. What is going on here?
"It hurts so bad when you're not playing that you just want to show everyone," Gibbs said. "I just wanted to be out on the field so bad, you want to help your team as much as you can."
Gibbs can do that again as Land O'Lakes (7-4) takes on Ocala Forest (7-4) at 7:30 p.m. Friday in a region semifinal at Gator Stadium.
Last season when Land O'Lakes went 12-1 and made its first region final appearance, Gibbs was moved from receiver to running back to fill in for the injured Chris Perez.
This year he moved back to replace Logan Payne, who commited to Minnesota after leading the state in catches (72) and touchdowns (21).
But only now are Gibbs and Weatherford truly clicking like the Florida State-bound quarterback did a year ago with Payne for 1,251 yards. Gibbs is maturing on the field, but needs to off of it as well.
"I don't know what his problem is," coach John Benedetto said. "But he's a pretty darn good football player, I can tell you that. We try to keep him under wraps but sometimes he gets away from us and does things he's not supposed to. When you do things like that, you get disciplined."
On the field it wasn't pretty at times, either. Dropped passes. Bad routes. Miscommunication. It took weeks for Weatherford and all of his receivers to get on the same page, which is where he and Gibbs are now.
"If I throw the ball," Weatherford said. "I have the same confidence in Eddy that I had in Logan last year.
"I knew he had the potential, it's just taken longer than we thought for the two of us to really hook up. I think he finally realized how important football is to him and how fast his season could be over."
Gibbs caught a team-high 37 passes for 633 yards and eight touchdowns despite missing six quarters of the regular season. But he really came up big in the Auburndale game, rattling an athletically superior secondary.
On the Gators' first scoring drive, Gibbs ran a 12-yard hook route and came back for Weatherford's pass. He stepped outside, then broke inside for a 51-yard gain. His touchdown came on a 35-yard deep post minutes before the end of the first half, as he split the safeties.
Gibbs caught five passes for 136 yards in that first half, and in the second 6-foot-1 Jahmada Hubbard had to reach out with his left arm to jostle the 5-9 Gibbs, who had him beaten. The two hit the ground together, and Auburndale was flagged for pass interference.
"The way I looked at it was, I didn't really get a senior game, so I made (Auburndale) my senior game," Gibbs said. "It was a home playoff game, under the Friday night lights, it was the first round against a good team and everybody had us losing.
"I wanted to do everything in my power to get a win."
