A couple of weeks ago, Florida wide receiver Andre DeBose was given a sixth year of eligibility.
How did he celebrate the news?
He did his best impression of Marty Jannety and got thrown through a window.
Here’s the breakdown from the GPD:
At 6:30pm Saturday, officers responded to an armed confrontation involving at least 2 subjects in the front yard of the house that were reportedly armed with a handgun and a rifle.
When officers arrived, they found an SUV parked in front of the house with numerous bullet holes and shell casings in the road. One subject retreated into the house but came out and was secured within moments. Investigation determined that John Mark Honeycutt W/M 7/1/90, Andre Debose B/M 9/12/90, Victor Watkins II B/M 12/20/89 and Kristan Lipham W/F were eating together in the house.
Debose and Watkins got into an argument resulting in Watson pushing Debose into a window. The glass broke, but Debose was not injured. This angered Honeycutt who retrieved a handgun and threatened Watkins with it. However, Watkins immediately took the handgun from Honeycutt and then discharged several rounds into the ground outside the house.
Honeycutt now retrieved the rifle and fired several rounds into Watkins’s SUV and into the ground in front of the house. All parties were transported to CID where GPD detectives conducted interviews. After an extensive investigation, detectives arrested Honeycutt for Aggravated Assault. All other parties were released.
DeBose was a five-star recruit in the class of 2009. Rivals rated him as the #2 player at his position and the #21 player Nationally. Scout.com had him as the #3 WR. Simply put, he was a can’t miss prospect.
His college career started off on the bench in 2009 after he had a knee graft to fix a high school injury. As a freshman he had 10 receptions in 10 games. In 2011, he increased his receptions to 16 and added 4 touchdowns. As a red-shirt junior in 2012, he only caught three passes. During fall camp in 2013, DeBose suffered a season ending knee injury.
As a wide receiver he hasn’t lived up to his expectations. One area where he has been an all-star is on special teams. In 2010, he returned two kickoff returns for touchdowns, in 2011 he returned one and in 2012 he returned one. He currently owns the Florida record with four kick returns touchdowns.
His getting an extra year of eligibility was important for Florida, because they are a team void of offensive playmakers and DeBose has the ability to be a playmaker, even if it’s just on Special Teams. When Will Muschamp came on board at Florida, he had to clean up a lot of Urban Meyer’s mess. The question now is if DeBose is worth keeping around or if he will just be more trouble for Muschamp and the Gators.
