Brad Stewart, left, and Donovan Stiner (No. 13) celebrate with teammate Vosean Joseph at the end of Saturday's win over LSU. (Photo: Tim Casey/UAA Communications)
Safeties Stewart and Stiner Showing up for Gators
Tuesday, October 9, 2018 | Football, Scott Carter
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – In the final moments of Florida's most electrifying victory at the Swamp in three years, two out-of-state players who were high school juniors in 2015 basked in the cheers.
Sophomore safeties Brad Stewart and Donovan Stiner delivered key plays that sent LSU back to Bayou Country with its first loss of the season. Stewart's 25-yard interception return for a score caused the Swamp to shake with 1:45 remaining, and then Stiner sealed the deal with an interception with 21 seconds left.
A New Orleans native, Stewart has teamed with Stiner, from Houston, to form a strong alliance at a spot of concern for Florida's defense when the season began. Stiner is third on the team with 31 tackles and Stewart is fifth with 26. Neither player had a career start entering the season but each has shown steady improvement.
"They have good communication skills. They work to stay on the same page,'' Gators defensive coordinator Todd Grantham said. "Even though sometimes it may not be exact, as long as everyone is on the same page it all plays out. I think the biggest thing is having the confidence to make the call, and by having that confidence to make a call, then you can follow through and execute the call. As long as you both are on the same page, then we'll be fine with whatever you called. Those guys have done a good job with that."
Stiner has started every game but the victory over Colorado State, and Stewart has four starts in six games. They share time with junior Jeawon Taylor, who started the season opener but has come off the bench the past five games, and fellow sophomore Shawn Davis, a talented player who made his debut at Mississippi State after missing the first four games because of a knee injury.
For Stiner, he made the game-clinching play for the second consecutive week. His sack of Mississippi State quarterback Nick Fitzgerald wrapped Florida's 13-6 win over the Bulldogs.
Don't ask him to pick his favorite.
"I can't really decide,'' he said Monday. "It's too hard."
Stewart grabbed the second interception of his career with an exceptional diving catch in the road win at Tennessee on Sept. 22. He returned his third career pick for a score, stretching a 20-19 Florida lead to 27-19 on Saturday with the biggest play of his young career, prompting teammate Vosean Joseph to kick the ball into the stands reminiscent of Brandon Spikes against LSU 10 years earlier.
As for Stewart, head coach Dan Mullen reminded him he should have taken a knee so the offense could have run out the clock and not given LSU quarterback Joe Burrow another opportunity.
"I seen the quarterback peek over at his receiver, because he seen our linebacker about to blitz, I just made a play off the receiver,'' Stewart said. "I was super excited."
A veteran with NFL and college coaching experience, Grantham has seen about everything in his time in the game. Sure, the safe play for Stewart would have been to take a knee. But Grantham gets why Stewart caught the ball and raced toward the end zone.
Was he upset?
"Absolutely not,'' he said. "First of all, anytime you can get an interception, get an interception. He's a really young player. We actually practice that every Thursday with a turnover and we take a knee. But when there's 90,000 people in the Swamp and it's exciting when you see it. You learn from it and we move on. The most important thing is we were able to close out the game and finish it."
Mullen credits Grantham and safeties coach Ron English with bringing along the young safeties quickly at a position that lost a pair of veterans to injuries a season ago in Nick Washington and Marcell Harris. Both Stewart and Stiner played last season, but they had a long way to go to be consistent performers when Mullen took over the program.
Preparation proved crucial on Stewart's interception, the first of the season thrown by Burrow.
"You look at the last situation, where we're bringing a lot of pressure, Brad knows from formation study that these are the two or three routes they're going to run out of this formation and that the ball has to come out quick,'' Mullen said. "Ron does a great job of getting those guys in that position."
Meanwhile, Stiner's first career interception came on the sideline when he closed quickly on an LSU receiver trying to make a catch and get out of bounds.
"I read it the whole way,'' he said. "I knew they needed to get to the sticks, so I was just reading the quarterback's eyes. We are getting much more comfortable as each game goes. We've been playing in big games so our confidence is going up, and I think getting a lot more comfortable out there."
Part of the duo's close connection that Grantham relies on was forged by the fact they are roommates on the road and developed a friendship away from the field. Their familiarity with one another carries between the lines. Grantham also credits both players with becoming better tacklers, an issue that plagued the defense in the loss to Kentucky.
With Grantham's aggressive calls up front, Stiner and Stewart are the last line of defense if the offense makes a play.
"Those guys have done a good job of understanding, 'here are the core things we need to be good at' and they've worked hard to improve in those areas,'' Grantham said. "Ron has done a great job of developing those guys because you see them get better each week, and understanding our system, our concepts and how to play, understanding leverages. They're talented guys, they're just young."
But getting older by the game.
Junior Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, who plays the "star" position in Grantham's defense, started his career at safety under the previous coaching staff.
In the annual matchup against LSU, the question of which school is the real DBU always surfaces. The two underclassmen helped answer that question with an exclamation point according to Gardner-Johnson.
"Who's the real DBU? That defined it right there,'' he said. "We can make plays when it's time to make plays."
Sophomore safeties Brad Stewart and Donovan Stiner delivered key plays that sent LSU back to Bayou Country with its first loss of the season. Stewart's 25-yard interception return for a score caused the Swamp to shake with 1:45 remaining, and then Stiner sealed the deal with an interception with 21 seconds left.
A New Orleans native, Stewart has teamed with Stiner, from Houston, to form a strong alliance at a spot of concern for Florida's defense when the season began. Stiner is third on the team with 31 tackles and Stewart is fifth with 26. Neither player had a career start entering the season but each has shown steady improvement.
"They have good communication skills. They work to stay on the same page,'' Gators defensive coordinator Todd Grantham said. "Even though sometimes it may not be exact, as long as everyone is on the same page it all plays out. I think the biggest thing is having the confidence to make the call, and by having that confidence to make a call, then you can follow through and execute the call. As long as you both are on the same page, then we'll be fine with whatever you called. Those guys have done a good job with that."
Stiner has started every game but the victory over Colorado State, and Stewart has four starts in six games. They share time with junior Jeawon Taylor, who started the season opener but has come off the bench the past five games, and fellow sophomore Shawn Davis, a talented player who made his debut at Mississippi State after missing the first four games because of a knee injury.
For Stiner, he made the game-clinching play for the second consecutive week. His sack of Mississippi State quarterback Nick Fitzgerald wrapped Florida's 13-6 win over the Bulldogs.
Don't ask him to pick his favorite.
"I can't really decide,'' he said Monday. "It's too hard."
Stewart grabbed the second interception of his career with an exceptional diving catch in the road win at Tennessee on Sept. 22. He returned his third career pick for a score, stretching a 20-19 Florida lead to 27-19 on Saturday with the biggest play of his young career, prompting teammate Vosean Joseph to kick the ball into the stands reminiscent of Brandon Spikes against LSU 10 years earlier.
As for Stewart, head coach Dan Mullen reminded him he should have taken a knee so the offense could have run out the clock and not given LSU quarterback Joe Burrow another opportunity.
"I seen the quarterback peek over at his receiver, because he seen our linebacker about to blitz, I just made a play off the receiver,'' Stewart said. "I was super excited."
A veteran with NFL and college coaching experience, Grantham has seen about everything in his time in the game. Sure, the safe play for Stewart would have been to take a knee. But Grantham gets why Stewart caught the ball and raced toward the end zone.
Was he upset?
"Absolutely not,'' he said. "First of all, anytime you can get an interception, get an interception. He's a really young player. We actually practice that every Thursday with a turnover and we take a knee. But when there's 90,000 people in the Swamp and it's exciting when you see it. You learn from it and we move on. The most important thing is we were able to close out the game and finish it."
Mullen credits Grantham and safeties coach Ron English with bringing along the young safeties quickly at a position that lost a pair of veterans to injuries a season ago in Nick Washington and Marcell Harris. Both Stewart and Stiner played last season, but they had a long way to go to be consistent performers when Mullen took over the program.
Preparation proved crucial on Stewart's interception, the first of the season thrown by Burrow.
"You look at the last situation, where we're bringing a lot of pressure, Brad knows from formation study that these are the two or three routes they're going to run out of this formation and that the ball has to come out quick,'' Mullen said. "Ron does a great job of getting those guys in that position."
Meanwhile, Stiner's first career interception came on the sideline when he closed quickly on an LSU receiver trying to make a catch and get out of bounds.
"I read it the whole way,'' he said. "I knew they needed to get to the sticks, so I was just reading the quarterback's eyes. We are getting much more comfortable as each game goes. We've been playing in big games so our confidence is going up, and I think getting a lot more comfortable out there."
Part of the duo's close connection that Grantham relies on was forged by the fact they are roommates on the road and developed a friendship away from the field. Their familiarity with one another carries between the lines. Grantham also credits both players with becoming better tacklers, an issue that plagued the defense in the loss to Kentucky.
With Grantham's aggressive calls up front, Stiner and Stewart are the last line of defense if the offense makes a play.
"Those guys have done a good job of understanding, 'here are the core things we need to be good at' and they've worked hard to improve in those areas,'' Grantham said. "Ron has done a great job of developing those guys because you see them get better each week, and understanding our system, our concepts and how to play, understanding leverages. They're talented guys, they're just young."
But getting older by the game.
Junior Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, who plays the "star" position in Grantham's defense, started his career at safety under the previous coaching staff.
In the annual matchup against LSU, the question of which school is the real DBU always surfaces. The two underclassmen helped answer that question with an exclamation point according to Gardner-Johnson.
"Who's the real DBU? That defined it right there,'' he said. "We can make plays when it's time to make plays."
Players Mentioned
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