GAINESVILLE, Fla. — For three seasons during the glorious 1990s, Ike Hilliard was one of the most electrifying, most productive Florida Gators during a stunningly dominant run of championships. When he left, Hilliard was a first-round NFL Draft pick who played 12 seasons in the league, then upon his release as a player remained on the pro football treadmill by going directly into coaching.
"My situation was different than most in my position," Hilliard said. "I never stopped working."
Ike Hilliard
No breaks from the game meant few, if any, opportunities to return to UF. Hilliard did have a couple hours with some former Florida teammates in the fall of 2006, when the '96 national-championship was invited back for a reunion. The event fell on an open date for Hilliard's team at the time, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, so a trip up Interstate-75 was convenient. And quick.
Thirteen years later, turns out Hilliard has another bye this weekend, but the trip won't be such a whirlwind. Now wide receivers coach for the Washington Redskins, Hilliard will have a family homecoming alongside his wife and three daughters, who together will watch him execute the traditional "Mr. Two Bits" routine before the No. 10 Gators (7-2, 4-2) square off against Vanderbilt (2-6, 1-4) in Saturday's high-noon Southeastern Conference game at Spurrier/Florida Field.
"I'm excited and humbled by it," he said. "It's one of the most unique traditions in college football."
A generation of Florida football fans may not be that familiar with Hilliard … but should be. A top-shelf recruit from Patterson, La., Hilliard shunned LSU to sign with
Steve Spurrier, and the Gators were all the better for it, thanks to 126 career receptions, 2,214 yards and 29 touchdowns, some among the most significant in program history.
He arrived as a freshman in 1994 — in a class that included future fellow first-round picks Fred Taylor and Reidel Anthony — and was a marquee target and playmaker for three SEC championship teams. As a sophomore, Hilliard caught 57 passes for 1,008 yards and a league record-tying 15 touchdowns. His junior numbers showed 47 catches for 900 yards, but back in those days bowl-game stats did not count. That was the year Florida met rival and top-ranked Florida State in a Sugar Bowl rematch for the national title and destroyed the Seminoles 52-20.
Hilliard's numbers that game: seven catches, 150 yards and three touchdowns, among them the famous foot-planting score that remains one of the most electrifying in UF football lore.
In 1997, Hilliard declared for the draft and was taken seventh overall by the New York Giants. He suffered a neck injury as a rookie and played just two games and caught just two passes, but 12 years later had amassed a career — eight seasons with the Giants (1997-2004), four with the Bucs ('05-08)— of 546 receptions, 6,397 yards and 35 touchdowns.
On Feb. 24, 2008, Hilliard was part of a dark five-player Tampa Bay purge the likes of which the league had rarely seen. The Bucs, looking to cut salary and rebuild following the firing of coach Jon Gruden, released 13-time Pro-Bowler and future Hall-of-Famer Derrick Brooks, along with Joey Galloway, Warrick Dunn, Cato June and Hilliard in one cruel swoop.
"They decided to go young," Hilliard said.
At the same time, the start-up United Football League, was putting together staffs and rosters. Jay Gruden, Jon's younger brother and a former offensive assistant in Tampa, had been hired as head coach of the Florida Tuskers in Orlando. Hilliard called Gruden to offer his congratulations. Gruden responded by offering Hilliard, 32 and out of work, a chance to coach the team's wide receivers.
The UFL went under in 2012, but Hilliard was scooped up to coach wide receivers with the Redskins, who won the NFC East that season. The following year, Hilliard had held the same post in Buffalo for a season, then went back to Washington when Jay Gruden was hired as head coach in 2014. He's been there since.
The Hilliard family (from left): Ilysa, Jewels (Juju), Lourdes, Ike, and Leila.
This week, the Redskins have a bye, which will allow Hilliard to bring his family to the "Swamp" for the first time together. For Hilliard, now 43, it will be his first trip to Gainesville since he zipped up here in August of 2018 to take part in commencement ceremonies after completing work — 24 years later — toward a UF degree in criminal justice. His wife, a Florida grad will join him. His children, all of them rabid Gators through osmosis, will be treated to their first UF home game.
Some things are worth the wait.
"I was fortunate to play three years there and only lose four games and left with three SEC championships and played in two national title games," Hilliard said. "We won a lot of games, but it's the relationships you develop, the memories and mistakes you make along the way; when there's time to reflect on it all -- and I don't have a lot of free time on my hands -- I try do cycle through those times and pass them on to my players and my children. There's a lot of joy in that."
With more to come this weekend.
