Just how sick
was Percy Harvin?
In postgame
interviews, players and coaches offered conflicting stories on the
status of Harvin leading up to Saturday's game.
The
surprising news that Harvin would not play due to a sinus
infection, as first reported by the Alligator on Saturday
afternoon, was not at all stunning to at least one of his
teammates.
"I knew the
whole week that he wasn't going to be able to probably play because
he was kind of sick and feeling down," sophomore linebacker Brandon
Spikes said after the Gators' win at South Carolina on Saturday
night.
UF coach
Urban Meyer said he did not know for sure that Harvin would not be
able to play until Friday or Saturday.
"He started
to get sick early in the week, and it got real bad near the end of
the week," said Meyer, who, along with wide receivers coach Billy
Gonzales, professed after Thursday's practice that Harvin should be
fine to play.
Offensive
coordinator Dan Mullen went even farther, saying he would not cross
Harvin's name off of his personnel groupings list until one hour
before kickoff.
But Mullen
also started prepping for an offense without Harvin on Wednesday,
the first day that Harvin missed portions of practice.
"I wasn't
expecting him to practice a whole lot when he was so sick," Mullen
said. "But I figured Percy was going to be there on game day to
carry the ball. … You never know with Percy Harvin. You might just
see him walk through the door right now and say, 'You know what?
I'm going.' The plan (without Harvin) was designed on
Wednesday."
