Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — David Reese verbally committed to the University of Florida on Dec. 16, 2015. It was his 18th birthday. The Gators checked every box the Reese family was looking for. Distance was still a concern, what with Detroit more than a thousand miles away, but the Reeses got some assurances on that front from someone they trusted.

"You're gonna take care of our baby, right?" Reese's mother asked.

"Yes ma'am," Jarrad Davis replied. "As long as he loves football, I got him."

Fast forward seven months to July 2016. Reese was in his third semester at UF, having enrolled in January and participated through spring workouts. Now, he was knee-deep in offseason prep. His parents called from Michigan to check in.

"Can't talk right now," he told them. "I'm watching tape with JD."

Yes, Reese proved his love for football early on to Davis, UF's senior linebacker and unquestioned team leader. In time, Reese also proved his ability to play it. As it turned out, Reese was summoned to duty as a true freshman in 2016 after Davis suffered an ankle injury that basically ended his UF career, save a couple hobbled plays in the Southeastern Conference Championship Game. Reese started against South Carolina and racked up a game-high 11 tackles, then chased that performance with 12 tackles in Florida's road upset at LSU to clinch the SEC East Division crown. A wrist injury and subsequent surgery cost Reese the opportunity to play in the Outback Bowl, but he's 100 percent healthy now and has resumed his love-for-football spot in the middle of a Gators defense looking to replace seven former teammates now in the NFL.

"I'm sure they're people who think we're too young or too inexperienced and that's OK. That's something we can handle, probably something we deserve," Reese said. "But we're a program that has a next-man-up mentality. That's the sign of a truly great program. We're going to hold ourselves to [high] expectations and we'll perform to them."

Now more than two weeks since reporting for training camp, the names of a lot of those young and inexperienced guys have been tossed around during media sessions with Coach Jim McElwain. Rightfully so. The Gators are looking for depth on the defensive side of the ball.

But a name that hasn't been mentioned very often is that of Reese; probably because there is little intrigue as far as that inside linebacker spot. The one he inherited last season from Davis. The one Reese has locked down.

"He's kind of that guy that's the nuts and bolts of where we are as a defense," McElwain said.

Nuts and bolts are prerequisites for blue-blood, blue-collar guys.

And what says blue-collar worker more than a kid from Detroit, right?
 
Reese, whose father played football at both Michigan State and Eastern Michigan, grew up as a Motor City terror in the Police Athletic League, doing his damage not only on defense, but as a quarterback. Did so alongside and against some pretty solid competition. One of his PAL teams featured a dozen future FBS players.

From the time Reese set foot on the field as a freshman at Farmington High he was a starter. When finished, he'd amassed nearly 500 tackles.  

Reese was heavily recruited and verbally committed to three different schools. The first was Louisville, but that didn't last. Not after Jim Harbaugh, coming off his first season at Michigan, got deep into the picture. The Wolverines, just 30 miles to the west of Farmington, seemed like an ideal fit — until Harbaugh kept talking about Reese playing fullback.

"We were all locked in on Michigan. We'd shut down David's recruiting," father David Reese said. "But we weren't feeling that fullback thing. David wanted to play linebacker."

Harbaugh eventually relented, but with caveat. If Reese was set on playing defense, the Wolverines weren't going to sign him early because Harbaugh wanted more offensive guys checked in for spring.

The Reese's weren't feeling that, either.

Reese, it turned out, had the big picture in mind. He wanted to enroll early, get ahead in his academics and if a redshirt season came about along the way he'd make the most out of that fifth season.

"That way, I could get a master's degree," Reese said.

Yes, this kid is wound a little differently.

After his second decommitment, Texas, Texas Christian, Nebraska and Florida become key players in the picture, with linebackers coach Randy Shannon doing the heaving lifting on UF's behalf. On Reese's official visit to Gainesville, Davis played host. It was the weekend after the Gators had lost to Alabama in the Southeastern Conference Championship Game, a defeat Davis took hard; so hard, he declared he couldn't leave on such a note and vowed to come back for his senior season.

That was when Davis made another vow. The one to the Reese's.

Just under a year later, after being personally groomed by the Gators' alpha male and future NFL first-round draft pick, Reese was called on to replace the injured Davis in the UF defense and was terrific as a true freshman.

"It's hard to replace a guy like that, but I don't think we missed a step along the way," senior safety Nick Washington recalled. "He was very physical. He was making all his checks and calls. He communicated with the defensive line, which is so important because everything trickles down from the safeties to the linebackers and D-line. He did really, really well."

The moment was not too big.

"I never thought I was in over my head because, for us, practice was the hardest thing we were ever going to do. When I got on the field, things were surprisingly easy," Reese said. "Coach Shannon always told me if I worked hard I'd learn from the best and that if something happened I had to know the playbook and my assignments … but I never could have imagined starting five games."

He also could not have imagined breaking a wrist. Both of them, actually.

Reese injured his right wrist during practice the week of the LSU game, but wrapped it up and played through the pain. No big deal, he thought. At the time, he thought it was similar to the pain he felt when he injured his left wrist in high school. Reese played through that pain too, even did fingertip push-ups to strengthen it. Or so he thought.

So UF trainer Paul Silvestri called the Reeses in Michigan and update them on their son's pending surgery.

"I was like, 'It's that left wrist again, huh?' " the elder Reese said.

Silvestri's response: "Excuse me? The left wrist?"

So Reese had surgery on both wrists, missed the Outback Bowl and all of spring practice, all the while with an eye on being ready when the Gators reported for fall camp.

And, yes, he's ready, yet not just to pick up where he left off, but to "take that next step," according to Shannon, and to build on his resume as a technician, student of the game, leader in the locker room, coach on the field and all-out, physical SEC player.

Calling it like it is: Reese, if healthy, figures to lead the Gators in tackles this season.
 
"Playing linebacker as a true freshman at the University of Florida in those types of games was tremendous for him," Shannon said. "Now he's got to take that next step of learning what you did last year; now take the next step of increasing your knowledge, increasing what you can do. Every time a linebacker can increase what he built on, learning-wise, he will be a very successful player. He, in turn, has to be the quarterback for that front, make sure those guys are lined up and playing fast. Take a lot of pressure off those big guys, like anything else, they play the game, they get tired. You've got to encourage those guys when they're tired and also get them lined up quick so they can put their foot in the ground and get vertical in certain situations."

That's how Jarrad Davis did it. Reese not only had a front-row seat in that class, but eventually had to take that seat.

Ironically, Davis is now in Detroit, having been the first-round pick of the Lions. Up there, he has a second family in the Reeses, who are all too glad to return a favor the former UF star did for them. They're looking after him.  

"It's kind of like we switched places," Reese said.

Kind of. Davis may not be looking after Reese anymore. He has some growing up to do on his own.

But he'll be watching.