Easley's Emergence Provides Gators With Energy Boost
Friday, September 23, 2011 | Football, Scott Carter
LEXINGTON, Ky. – Some players emerge quietly, making a play here and a play there until they have compiled an impressive body of work before anyone really notices.
Not Dominique Easley. That's not really his style. He prefers to arrive on the scene more like a bullhorn in the middle of the night.
“He's got a motor on him. He can get on your nerves, now,'' said his father, David. “I actually feel sorry for them dudes [on the offensive line] having to deal with that kind of activity.”
A sophomore defensive tackle, Easley has quickly become a disruptive force for the Gators in the first three games, earning defensive player of the game honors from head coach Will Muschamp the past two weeks.
Easley was at his best on back-to-back plays in last week's win over Tennessee, bursting through the Vols' offensive line both times to record a tackle-for-loss. Not everything that Easley offers can be recorded on the stat sheet.
He has developed into one of the Gators' emotional leaders, leading the team in rally cries in the locker room and on the field before games. That's just another way for Easley to get his head into the game.
After all, he rarely turns his motor off.
“I'm an emotional player. I take opponents as if they are my enemies,'' he said. “That's just who I am. I'm just an angry person at times.''
His energy and versatility on the interior line is something other teams must now address as the 6-foot-2, 282-pound Easley begins to show some of the promise that made him one of the top defensive line recruits in the nation in 2010 coming out of Staten Island (N.Y.) Curtis High.
First-year Gators defensive coordinator Dan Quinn was immediately impressed at Easley's physical tools. Quinn is now pleased to see some of those gifts showing up on the field.
“There is some quickness there that is pretty rare,'' Quinn said. “He adds a lot to what we're bringing up front. He plays a style that we like – he plays fast and physical and gets his hands on you. The more he's playing and gaining the experience, six games from now, nine games from now, he's going to be even that much better.''
The road from there to here had its bumps though.
Easley played in only six games a year ago, recording four tackles – or about a quarter's worth in high school. A city kid who grew up hopping on the Staten Island Ferry for trips into Manhattan and subway rides all over the Big Apple, Easley wondered if Florida was the place for him.
He felt lost at times.
“He's a true New Yorker,'' David said.
So is David, who once left the city to play basketball at Southern University in Louisiana before returning to New York to finish at St. Thomas Aquinas College. The two talked regularly as Easley struggled to find his place at UF as a freshman.
“I was homesick,'' Easley said this week. “Gainesville, the country, is a whole different place for me than New York.''
Easley hung around and is now glad he did, rejuvenated by a new defensive scheme that allows him to move around the line and play different positions. Actually, if you've seen Easley play, you know he more like dances around the defensive line.
His dancing has gotten as much attention recently as his improved production.
“I just dance because I like to have fun,'' he said. “That's about it.''
Easley is constantly bouncing around the field, chatting up a storm that not all of his teammates really understand.
“He gives a great energy boost,'' Gators linebacker Jelani Jenkins said. “He's funny. He's always keeping us loose. He plays his best when he is having fun. I think that's what a lot of people see out of him. If a bad play happens, he is still dancing, trying to enjoy the game and take the stress out of it.''
Defensive end Ronald Powell, a Californian who arrived at Florida in the same highly-touted recruiting class as Easley, isn't sure he has ever had a teammate quite like the one from the Big Apple.
“Easley is a special character,'' Powell said. “You don't know what he's doing out there. He's dancing, he's talking, that's just the type of player he is. I don't even know if he's talking trash. I don't know what he's doing honestly.
“He's the same dude every day. If he didn't do that, we would ask what's wrong with him.''
As Easley has started to play a more prominent role, people have not only noticed his dancing, but other eccentric qualities.
For one, he came out of the tunnel for the Tennessee game with a huge chain around his neck. Not a necklace-type chain, but the kind of chain you might hook up to a tow truck and use to pull a car.
Oh, and you may have seen the Chucky Doll from the “Child's Play” movie series that he carries on Gator Walk. What's up with that?
“That's just my friend,'' Easley said, chuckling at the Chucky question. “I just like the movie and think Chucky is really funny. He's just my friend.''
His father offers an assist.
“That was his girlfriend's thing,'' David said. “She bought it for him and now he's going with it. In some sense he is Chucky without the murderer's rage and all the illegal stuff that Chucky does. He doesn't do all that, but telling jokes and constantly bugging people, that's him.''
Easley gets much of his athleticism and size from his dad, who is 6-3 and 280 pounds. David played power forward in college and watched Dominique, the middle of his three kids, turn into a man-child by the time he was in middle school. Easley had to wear braces on his legs growing up because he was so bow-legged. Still, David said that didn't stop him from running around the house and playing baseball and basketball.
He wanted to play football, too, but couldn't.
“I could see the talent that was there,'' David said. “When he was younger, they wouldn't allow him to play football because he was too big for his age.''
Once Easley reached high school, he started to hit the weights and opposing quarterbacks. He would spend hours with former Curtis teammate Dominick LeGrande – who later played at Boston College – working out in the gym as scholarship offers started to roll in. They wanted to show that a kid from Staten Island could make it in big-time college football the way so many New York City-area kids do in basketball.
“We had to do it all by ourselves,'' Easley said. “We didn't have any personal trainers or anything like that. We trained every day.''
However, Easley learned that he had to start over again once he arrived at UF last fall. Playing time was hard to come by, and with homesickness starting to set in, he found himself in a hole he had to climb from.
When Muschamp took over, Easley sensed a new start and has been making the most of it recently.
“I just know I have a bigger role on the team, so I know I've got to produce,'' Easley said. “It's bigger than me. It was just an opportunity and I took it.''
Said David: “I think he is just doing what he pretty much thought he could do last year. But he had to learn some things before he could get out there. The kid is extremely confident in his game.''
No doubt about that. You have to be to carry around a Chucky Doll and run onto the field with a chain around your neck.
