Grimes keeps pushing Gators
Transfer wide out tries to pull something positive from defeat
GAINESVILLE — Trevon Grimes knows sacrifice.
The 6-foot-5 sophomore from Fort Lauderdale gave up a potential career at Ohio State to come play for Florida, a school with arguably a far smaller chance of reaching the College Football Playoff semifinals. He knows about not getting attention from his quarterback. He knows about personal loss.
The boisterous wideout made the most of his time in Gainesville after his transfer. A summer of workouts and training camps yielded positive results after he worked his way up to third on the depth chart heading into the Gators’ first game of the season.
His initial touch didn’t disappoint. He took a first-quarter screen pass 34 yards to the end zone for Florida’s opening score of the season. It was the catch that Grimes said prompted coach Dan Mullen to congratulate him with a hearty, “Welcome to the Swamp.”
“Just being able to come back and hug my coach and being able
to have him share that moment with me was an amazing feeling,” Grimes said.
The honeymoon period would be short-lived. Through nearly three quarters of play the following week, Grimes got a different introduction to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. One that included boos and jeers raining down from the bleachers into the indifferent ears of referees after a field goal attempt from freshman Evan McPherson was called no good.
Grimes finally got on the stat sheet midway through the third on a quick slant pattern, but by that time, the damage had been done. Grimes couldn’t help his team overcome the deficit it had built itself. He was the eighth pass-catcher to be targeted Saturday night.
“I wouldn't say it affects momentum,” he said. “I feel like definitely all the receivers, we all talk and we feel like if one eats, we all eat… If I get one target a game or Van [Jefferson] gets three targets a game or Tyrie [Cleveland] gets three targets a game, we all share the wealth.”
But Grimes is no stranger to bouncing back from adversity. After Monday’s practice, he said the loss to UK even did the team some good.
“The vibe, the mood, everything honestly is the same, if not improved,” Grimes said.
Mullen set the tone for the week directly after his team’s loss.
“Physicality” and its many coach-speak offshoots — toughness, grit, etc. — would be the focus of practices moving forward.
“Everyone takes messages like that not too well,” Grimes said. “It kind of challenges your manhood, but at the end of the day, we know it’s all love and he just wants the best for us. … If he is saying that then obviously that’s a problem and we are going to go back to the drawing board, be more physical and fix that problem.”
For all his feelings about the challenges he has faced on football fields, none could hold a candle to how Grimes feels about the February shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. He wears a pair of bracelets honoring both his friend Meadow Pollack and the 16 other murder victims.
“Every day on my cleats, I have ‘MSD 17 strong,’ ” Grimes said. “[It’s] just a topic that's kind of emotional to me because it's so close to home that I really don't get into, but it was definitely a hard time for me.”
He said the bracelets help ground him in the love he receives from his friends and family in South Florida.
Grimes said Aaron Feis, a football coach among the 17 killed at Stoneman Douglas, is one of his heroes, according to an interview with insidethegators.com. He said he admired the bravery Feis showed in attempting to save students from being shot.
“I had a pair of Florida cleats, and I gave them to his brother,” Grimes told the website. “He set them for his memorial, and he has them now from me. So I feel like that’s a piece of me given to him. So every time I step on the field it’s in memory of him and the 16 others that passed.
“That's a memory of who I play for and everybody back home who supports me that's at that school, that supports me so I feel like I owe it to them.”