100 Days to Gator Football: Wayne Peace

Wayne Lamar Peace of Lakeland, Florida, owned the NCAA record for single-season completion percentage with 70.7% (broken a year later by Steve Young of Brigham Young). Offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan taught Wayne to stretch the field horizontally with high percentage passes. His most memorable pass, a game winner over Miami on September 4, 1982, was nicknamed “the Catch” (not to be confused with Joe Montana to Dwight Clark “the Catch” on January 10, 1982) by Gator fans due to the implications of beating such a powerful Miami team. It was probably called “the Catch”, because it certainly was too ugly to be known as “the Throw”–a fluttering duck that running back James Jones (my #59 on the list of Greatest Gators) somehow snagged with one hand in the back of the Florida Field end zone to seal the 17-14 victory. Wayne still ranks 2nd in UF history with a career passing percentage of 61.6 for 7,206 yards. Wayne Peace's arrival in Gainesville marked the beginning of a great 30 years of Gator football.