Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – One night when Gators sophomore Amari Burney was in high school, his father, Chris Burney, remembers watching an episode of HBO's "Hard Knocks" with his youngest son.

It was the 2015 season that featured the Houston Texans and much of the show focused on J.J. Watt, the reigning NFL Defensive Player of the Year. In this particular episode, Watt discussed his regimen to improve and shared with viewers his sleeping habits.

Watt was no night owl, often going to bed around 8 p.m. so he could be in top form the next day.

"Man, I look around and the next thing you know Amari – and this is when he's like 13 or 14 years old – Amari is in bed at 8 o'clock,'' Chris said Thursday. "I didn't tell him to do it. His mom didn't tell him to do it. He is very serious about it."

It wasn't the first time Burney had shown a self-driven initiative to see what he could accomplish as a player. A few years earlier in middle school, after countless games in which he was the best player on the field, Chris and Amari had a talk about how the competition would increase once he got to high school.

Chris informed him that the big plays and zigzag touchdowns – Burney once touched the ball seven times and scored seven times as a member of the Gulfport Pirates youth-league team – wouldn't come nearly as easy.

"There was a time I could actually count on my hands – probably until the time he was in high school –how many times he would get the ball and actually get tackled,'' Chris said.

Those days were over, though. If Amari wanted to be a standout at the next level, he would need to put in the work away from the field while others relaxed or took the day off from training. His dad left the conversation at that.

Amari took note and soon began training on his own to find an edge. Once he noticed improvements, he was often the one knocking on his dad's door in the morning to go for a training session.

"I just thought it was going to come easy,'' he said. "I really didn't know all the things you had to do."
 
His newfound work habits helped Burney become a top recruit at Clearwater Calvary Christian, where he was a two-way starter and rarely took a play off, starring at receiver on offense and safety on defense. The recruiting offers started to pour in.

Both Miami and Florida – they open the season Aug. 24 against each other in Orlando – offered Burney scholarships. He eventually chose the Gators over some of the top programs in the country and played in 12 games as a true freshman, mostly appearing on special teams and as a reserve defensive back. Burney's most notable play came in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl victory against Michigan when he recorded his first career sack.

During a season that required the kind of patience and learning he was unaccustomed to since he had never sat the bench, Burney's play against Michigan was a key moment for him heading into the offseason.

"Very important, just Coach believing in me and putting me on the field in a type of package for me to blitz and make a play like that,'' Burney said. "It was just a big confidence boost for me."

Burney's momentum carried into spring camp where he was one of Florida's breakout players, moving to linebacker and taking most of the reps left behind by junior Vosean Joseph, who passed on his final year of eligibility to enter the NFL Draft.

Burney's versatility allowed defensive coordinator Todd Grantham to cross-train him at linebacker and nickel – called "star" in UF's defense – the position Burney spent most of last season as a reserve behind starter Chauncey Gardner-Johnson.

"By him going [to linebacker], it allows us to get good speed on the field, work to get our best 11 players on the field," Grantham said in the spring. "Also gives us flexibility. He could easily go back and play star if he had to."

That scenario has unfolded during preseason camp with the 6-foot-2, 224-pound Burney getting reps at weak-side linebacker and star behind starter Trey Dean. With Gardner-Johnson now in the NFL, fellow sophomore John Huggins no longer part of the program and redshirt junior C.J. McWilliams out for the season due to a ruptured Achilles tendon, Burney is a man on the move.

He won't have to worry about watching much from the bench.

"He's a weapon. He's one of those guys who is truly the definition of an athlete,'' senior linebacker David Reese said. "You could put him at wide receiver on offense. He could play anywhere on the field. He's going to be moving from linebacker to safety, whatever he needs to do on this team. He is able to pick up on whatever he has to do. He is willing to learn. That's the biggest thing."

Barney grew up running track and then dipping his toes in football, basketball and baseball during their respective seasons. However, he gravitated toward football as he got older with a pair of cousins in the NFL. Los Angeles Chargers defensive back Brandon Facyson is a cousin on his mother's side and former Alabama linebacker C.J. Mosley is a relative on his father's side of the family. Facyson, who went to Virginia Tech, played for current Gators defensive backs coach Torrian Gray his freshman season of college.

"We're not the type of parents that push him out there,'' Chris said. "He told us a long time ago that this is something he wanted to do. We kind of leaned on those guys to let him know that the dream is real."

Burney continues to put in the work as he chases the dream. But first, he has his sights on making a bigger impact with the Gators than a sack in a bowl game.

The juggling of two positions during camp might overwhelm a less-dedicated player. Not Burney. This is exactly what he had in mind when he turned up the intensity on his approach to the game in high school.

"I'm a very good student of the game, just learning my craft and perfecting it,'' he said. "I love to play all around. I've been doing it my whole life, so it comes pretty easy now."