Congratulations, Tim Tebow! (Photo credit: Doug Finger, Gainesville Sun)
Today might be the national championship, and it might be a day that’s about Georgia and TCU. But for Florida QB Tim Tebow, it also served as one final day about him to officially put a bow on a college football career that may never be replicated.
Tebow was elected to the College Football Hall Of Fame today, becoming the 14th overall former Gator entrant and tenth former player to garner the sport’s ultimate honor. The other nine players Tebow joins are Dale Van Sickel, Jack Youngblood, Danny Wuerffel, Wes Chandler, Lomas Brown, Emmitt Smith, Wilber Marshall, Carlos Alvarez, and Steve Spurrier. Spurrier, of course, is a double entrant to the Hall Of Fame, having also gotten in as a coach. He joins Charles Bachman, Doug Dickey, and Ray Graves in that category.
Here’s the moment in which Tim Tebow found out about his induction.
Tebow becomes Florida’s seventh entrant into the Hall Of Fame since 2006, the most of any SEC school in that time span.
The decision to put Florida’s greatest player ever into the Hall Of Fame was an easy one. The accolades and results that Tim Tebow put up would be enough to fill a phone book.
Tebow did not start for, but played a significant role on, the Gators’ 2006 national championship team. It was Tebow that salted away Florida’s gritty 21-20 win on the road against Tennessee, it was Tebow who accounted for 21 of Florida’s 23 points in a 23-10 victory over LSU, and it was Tebow who finished off Ohio State with a quick rollout touchdown pass to Andre Caldwell and then a short touchdown plunge on fourth and goal from the Buckeyes’ one yard line.
In 2007, Tebow took the reins of the Florida offense and began to dominate the sport the way few before him ever had. Florida went 9-4 in 2007, 13-1 in 2008 en route to another national championship, and a disappointing 13-1 in 2009, in which the Gators “settled” for a Sugar Bowl blowout win and a final #3 ranking. Tebow also won the Heisman Trophy in 2007, was named as a Heisman finalist two additional times in 2008 and 2009, won the Maxwell Award (the same criteria as the Heisman, also judging the best player in college football, just by different people) in 2007 and 2008, snagged the MVP Award for both the 2009 BCS Championship Game and the 2010 Sugar Bowl, earned three first-team All-SEC honors, set five NCAA records, and 28 Florida Gator records.
All in all, Tim Tebow went 48-7 at Florida, and played at least a medium-sized role in three separate 13-win seasons. To this day, the 2006, 2008, and 2009 seasons still stand as the only 13-win seasons in program history. As a result, Florida inducted him into its own program’s Hall Of Fame a few years ago, along with Brandon James and Brandon Spikes.
