As soon as Rex Hodges picked up the phone, he knew what the call was about. And, quite frankly, he didn’t want to take it.
Yes, he coached Leonard Floyd at Dodge County High School, and yes, Floyd was a phenomenal player for him.
But coaches generally are a superstitious lot, and Hodges knows all too well the hoops and hurdles Floyd had to negotiate just to get to Georgia. So he was hesitant to sing his former pupil’s praises “before the hay’s in the barn,” so to speak.
“He ain’t played a game yet,” Hodges shouted into the phone. “Let him get a game under his belt first. I tell ya, y’all are going to jinx him.”
Hodges has heard all the fuss permeating from Georgia’s preseason football camp about the freakish 6-foot-4, 220-pound linebacker, and, no, he’s not surprised to hear that Floyd is making a favorable impression on the Bulldogs.
“He always works hard,” Hodges said. “He always practiced hard and played hard in football or basketball or track or whatever he was doing. And he did pretty well in all of them. He always gave 100 percent, and what he’s done, he’s made a habit out of it. So he doesn’t even have to think about it.
“He just goes out there, and that’s how he does things and now it’s kind of carried over. It’s working well for him.”
Hodges’ comments mirror the ones offered by Georgia coach Mark Richt last week. He gave them unsolicited to reporters covering the team after a practice in which Richt also singled out Floyd for his efforts in front of the team.
“Leonard Floyd just practices so hard and is relentless,” Richt said. “His head is still spinning, and he’s still learning. But he has really impressed me with how hard he practices on a daily basis, and he is going to get better and better because of it. He has been standing out to me for a while.”
“It kind of surprised me when he said it in front of the whole team like that,” Floyd said.
Teammates such as quarterback Hutson Mason and fellow outside linebacker Jordan Jenkins have shared tales of the athletic plays Floyd has made during the mostly private practices of preseason. He ran down a tailback from behind from the other side of the field in one scrimmage, they say, and he knocked down a pass well over 10 feet off the ground another time.
“Big Flo is a future playmaker,” said Jenkins, a pretty good player in his own right. “He’s got the size and frame, and he’s got a lot of skill sets I don’t have. … He’s a fun guy to watch.”
Such effusive praise will translate into game action in short order. Floyd is in the rotation to play strongside outside linebacker in the Aug. 31 opener against Clemson. He has gotten more than a little bit of work with Georgia’s No. 1 defense the last week, and he has done so despite having his left hand completely covered with a club cast because of a broken hand.
“We’re always going to play guys who produce,” said Todd Grantham, Georgia’s defensive coordinator and Floyd’s position coach. “If you make plays in scrimmages, you’re going to end up playing. I think Leonard has shown flashes of being a playmaker.”
Floyd is trying to tune out all the chatter. Interviewed earlier this week, he wouldn’t even concede he’s in position to play against Clemson.
“I don’t really know about playing time right now,” he said. “I’m just gonna keep working hard every day. I’m just going to do whatever coach Grantham asks me to do and accept my role.”
Floyd’s unwillingness to take anything for granted is understandable. He expected to be at Georgia a year ago before some of his academic work was disallowed by the NCAA Clearinghouse and he found himself at Hargrave Military Academy, a prep school in Chatham, Va.
So instead of playing for the Bulldogs, Floyd was at times unable to even see them on the television.
“I think I only watched like three games,” Floyd said. “I used to watch the games every weekend, so I was mad I couldn’t watch my boys play. But it’s military. They have you doing other things.”
So Floyd prepares like a man making up for lost time.
“He’s just typical of these guys around here,” Hodges said. “Leonard’s like a lot of guys from small South Georgia towns. They just know how to work because they’re exposed to it at an early age.”
But, Hodges says, “I’d still like to see him do it with the lights on.”
Soon enough, we all will.
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