Every time I read something about an OL player like Mo, someone I remember on a team that doesn't seem that long ago (happens as you get older--"20 YEARS???!"), I have to sigh. I mean, I guess like everyone else I started taking "the big uglies", HAVING a bunch of 'em ready to go (even stacked 2-deep on the depth chart, in some cases), for granted to some extent...but they make everything else on offense possible. God knows what our runners last few seasons woulda been doing had we had 'em. How good a year would Taylor and co. be about to have? Maybe even our all-but-bust QBs woulda had room and time to develop (or at least not look so hurried and horrid much of the time). And now we face a season where The Line is at its thinnest, most questionable in years, decades even. So many questions all over the roster--and on the OL most of all. Maybe we can pick up coupla more transfers. Maybe some of the questionables will fill out and "get it", maybe a coupla new guys'll step up. Maybe maybe maybe. You go into a season with too many maybes, especially there, and there ain't gonna BE too many "maybes" bout the end result on the won-loss record. Just an empirical likelihood. I wanna have faith and hope, but our situation there is just too unsettled, so far unanswered, that even just getting more wins than losses seems like a bit of a crapshoot right now. Our new Coach and his people are about to be required to seriously earn their pay--and then some if they can produce something that much excedes .500 ball.
Damon Jamal “Mo” Collins played on offensive line for Steve Spurrier from 1994 from 1997. He helped the Gators win the national title in 1996 as right tackle. Mo graduated with a degree in exercise and sports science in 1998, and was selected by the Oakland Raiders as the 23rd overall pick of the NFL Draft. Mo returned to his hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina at the conclusion of his NFL career and coached at his high school alma mater until his death in 2014.
