This is part of the sponsored EA posts for this week. Cha.Ching. Today's theme: our favorite players. 

Reggie Nelson, covered in sweat, grass, and the filth of the game, casually flexing the gluteus, quadricep, and calf muscle to spring over the orange block wall of Florida Field into the loving arms of delirious, drunken Gator fans: that is my enduring memory of the best safety to ever play at Florida. He started the run the instant Jarvis Moss's hand met ball, sending a dead-on game-winning Gamecock field goal skittering to the right, where it would land harmlessly on the turf like a dud artillery shell. He hit his teammates--gently!--in the pile, and then began running to the stands, a blue jersey popping into a mess of glistening arms, held in place by strangers who only wanted to crush the life out of him for sheer joy's sake, like a child overhugging a squeaking puppy. 

Nelson played safety like an overgrown corner whose family ranch was burned down by a gang of desperado wide receivers, ranging both wide and nasty through the secondary. Whatever he lacked in thumping mass he made up for in velocity, allowing Charlie Strong to play Nelson up top like a lone defender and swinging the strong safety down in the box like a fourth linebacker.

Go back and watch tape: when Florida lines up everything looks like a Cover One, with two corners on the edge and one Lone Ranger patrolling the range up top. That's how confident Strong was in Nelson: Here's a shotgun, Reggie. Sure, it's Jurassic Park, and raptors are highly intelligent, but you can handle it by yourself. Domino's delivers until eleven, and there's money in the dresser. See you on Monday. 

Nelson made Mohammed Massaquoi lay down rather than run a route. He ended the 2006 Alabama and Tennessee games singlehandedly with a pick. He destroyed Massaquoi in 2005, which might have something to do with 2006. He tattooed FSU's Joe Surratt in the Florida State game and erased several years worth of memories from Surratt's hard drive. He menaced every single offense that year into abandoning the long pass and crossing routes as serious options. More than anyone else, Nelson played the cornerstone for the 2006 team, a national champion more with the character of a counterpunching bastard than outright death machine (see: 2008.) 

This doesn't even take into effect the personals on Nelson: the Predator hair, the exuberant joy he took in obliterating people or playing centerfield, the springing hop he made after each tackle. None of this is said at the expense of Tim Tebow, but Nelson didn't have a father pushing him to football, or special clauses allowing him to play in high school, or ESPN apperances before he ever played a down. Nelson took the long way around to Florida, going to community college in Kansas to qualify before winding up in Gainesville, a wait made more excruciating considering his mother's advanced cancer. Nelson raced the disease as he made his way to Florida, where his mother did eventually see him play before her death in December 2006. 

He may be a shambles with the Jaguars, but his 2006 season at Florida is preserved in amber for us, and is a thing of joy forever. Exuberance, violent brilliance in braids wreaking havoc on the best laid plans of coaches, mice, and men: that is all we want Florida football to ever be, and its brand manager will forever be Reggie Nelson (with an assist from Earl Everett.) 

Holly: 

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This post is sponsored by EA Sports NCAA Football 2011*

Florida remains too diffuse a mutt for us to have the kind of monocultural solidity needed for a Unified Theory of Tailgating. The original invasive species in the state is humanity, and even the various kinds of human python who invaded the state in waves tend to view the others with suspicion and competitive envy: the Cubans from Miami, the old crackers who parlayed orange groves into real estate millions and Bull Gator spots within pissing distance of the stadium, the Midwesterners who flocked to Tampa and Orlando to escape winters and income tax, the ACRs (Alachua County Residents) with 24 packs of Busch Light propped on truck tailgates, the Subtropical Jersey Shore kids from Broward County whose hair products start to wilt in the heat of the third quarter, the panhandle rednecks who could pass for Bama Bangs Commandos...there's too much "us" in our "we" to have The Grove, or the Quad, or especially something as coordinated and spicy as the LSU Rolling Cajun Kitchen. 

That's not to say there aren't a few universals for Florida tailgating. 

BLIND DRUNKENNESS. The cruising beverage goes in the right hand, and when hard drinking (i.e. "real" drinking") commences, it moves to the left hand and is nursed until the "real drinking" ceases. Like the mating habits of our fans, indiscriminate is the word for choice of drink. We have personally consumed the following at Florida tailgates since 1994, and have noticed no pattern of beverage choice across this significant sample size: 

• Glenmore Gin (handle: $9.95) 
• Johnny Walker Blue 
• Moonshine (Taste: "paint thinner") 
• "Murphy's Last Stand." (Punch of unknown derivation and content. Left aftertaste of doom and apricot on the palate, and required several hours of recovery afterward.) 
• Apple pucker shots. (Don't ask.) 
• Maker's Mark. 
• Maker's Mark mixed with Gatorade. 
• Andre Cold Duck (two bottles, consumed for thirst not intoxication, who just came along for the ride for the hell of it.) 
• Malibu Rum and Coffee (Served hot on 92 degree day.)