He has played all of one game, but Florida Gators freshman wide receiver Dallas Wilson has made an impression.
Florida quarterback DJ Lagway calls him a "specimen." Louis Riddick, the ESPN game analyst and former National Football League director of pro personnel, called him a "monster."
In Saturday's 29-21 victory over No. 9 Texas, Wilson was a game-changer. He helped ignite an offense that had scored 33 points in its past three games.
Now, while the Gators' remaining schedule still includes five teams ranked in the AP Top 25, the outlook — for a week anyway — has changed from doom and gloom to curious and hopeful.
Wilson was that good.
He re-set standards for a Gators freshman wide receiver making his first-career start, with six receptions, 111 yards receiving and two touchdowns — all school records.
Here are his remarks after Saturday's game.
Q. What's it mean to get back on the field and just rise to the occasion in the spotlight like this with so many expectations for you?
WILSON: It meant everything. Like you said, the expectations, it wasn't really a big deal for me. I had all my brothers around me in the room, shout-out to all the receivers. I had Lag pushing me on, I had all the coaches.
It's just a good belief. Everybody believed in everybody, so it was good coming out there with all the guys.
Q. The 55-yard touchdown, can you take us through that a little bit? It kind of encapsulated a lot of your skills, including running over a guy at the goal line to end it.
WILSON: Yeah, that was a crazy play actually. I won off the line, off my release with the corner. Corner had fell to the floor. Lag threw the ball up to me, caught it, and after that I just let my talent take over. It was just boom from there.
Q. When you flipped over to Florida in January, could you have imagined at that time that you would have set five different team records within the first two times you put on a uniform?
WILSON: No, that's unbelievable. I just let God handle that. It was really just great being out there and just playing with my team.
Q. How relieving is it for you to come out and do this after the injury and the setback? You have all that hype going throughout the off-season, you have the setback in August, for you to come out and do this tonight?
WILSON: Yeah, I got banged up a little bit, but I just know if I kept being motivated and kept going, everything would be good.
Q. How frustrating is it to sit there and watch four games knowing what you're capable of doing and then having that chance to — how relieving is it to have a chance to get out there and show it?
WILSON: As a team I know what we can do. Knowing what you can do as a team is unbelievable. So we just stuck to the plan and kept coming week after week after week, and that bye week gave us a chance to really bond together as a team and just go out there and play our best ball.
Q. Talk about yourself-confidence. Where does it come from?
WILSON: I'd say from my mother. My mom had passed, her name is Lisa, but I would say my mother. She was very confident. She believed she could do anything in the world, and I guess that just carried on to me.
Q. You said the defender fell down. Did you have something to do with that, like the moves, or did you push him to the ground a little bit?
WILSON: Billy Gonzales teaches us some release moves, so I had worked one of the moves and it had worked.
Q. How good was the toe-touch catch on the sideline? I think it was an 18-yarder right before your 13-yard touchdown. How good a catch was that, or was that typical, normal?
WILSON: We practice every day. We practice those plays every day with Billy Gonzales, so it was really good. That's like a routine catch for us receivers.
Q. How frustrating was it for you to be sidelined while Florida's offense was struggling a little bit, unable to get going? Was it tough for you?
WILSON: No, it wasn't frustrating at all because again, like I said, I know what we can do as a team, so just believing as a team and just coming in week after week and seeing what they're putting on the field, I know the sky was the limit for us.
Q. You only had two weeks of practice time with DJ; what did you do to build chemistry and build a rapport when you couldn't be out there on the practice field?
WILSON: Two weeks? I've been catching the ball with DJ, but ...
Q. He said two weeks of full practice with you.
WILSON: Yeah, but two weeks of full practice with Lag was great. Just building that connection up and building that connection again was great to see my boy out there, and just playing as a team after that.
Q. Coming in, a lot of the struggle was deep downfield. We talked about it a little bit with Napier. Getting the ball deep, that was a big thing with Lagway last year. Then you come in and you guys explode downfield. You have more catches downfield than you've had all year. Is that just something that you can transform this offense with, being that deep threat?
WILSON: It's more than me out there. We've got some great guys. We've got Vernell, J. Michael Sturdivant, Eugene Wilson. Those guys really opened up the field out there for me today, and it was really great playing beside them guys.
Q. Talking about Vernell and you, freshman duo, what's the limit? Did you kind of imagine that coming in when you guys talked about committing here and playing here?
WILSON: Yeah, man, that boy Vernell is electric, man. I tell him every day, we'll be going back and forth some days in practice, but he's electric. But we've got some other great freshmen, Jeramiah McLeod, Jayden Woods. Those guys are great.
Q. Billy Napier. What do you think it is about him that leads the players to kind of rally around him? You guys are 1-3 coming in against Texas. A lot of stuff is being said outside. You guys from the jump were playing at a higher level than you had all season.
WILSON: Yeah, Coach Napier always tells us, block out the outside noise, so it's just coming in day after day and being motivated and having that belief as a team. Just being behind him, we knew we could do it. It was just putting it on the field. That was all.
Q. Is there something about him, though, just the way he treats you guys or the relationships he and the coaches have that cause you guys to be able to rise to the occasion?
WILSON: Yeah, Coach Napier to me — I always say Coach Napier to me is like another dad. Coach Napier is a great guy, man. I just love being around him, love seeing him coach out there. I love seeing him let us make plays and just be us out there.
Q. On that note, when we were asking about you before the season, Coach said that you were a problem, a good problem, and that you were going to be a major factor this year. You get back this week and he starts you first week back. What does his belief in you mean to you?
WILSON: I think it just started when we all got here as freshmen because when I first got here, I had a rough start. I was tired a lot. But him just pushing us forward and him just pushing me forward just kept me going and everything, and he's seen my progress, seen my growth. As a team, as all the freshmen here, we grow together, and he believed and he trusted us.
Q. When you got back from the bye this past week, was he telling you I'm about to feed you or did you know?
WILSON: No, Coach Napier didn't tell me nothing like that. But just putting in the work on the field and just executing plays and making plays, that's probably what led up to it.
Q. You mentioned the 55-yard touchdown, but your first career touchdown when you got in the end zone, what was that moment, feeling like for you given everything you've been through?
WILSON: I know a lot of guys were asking me on the sideline, like how does it feel. I'm like, it feels regular.
I'm like, I really don't know how I'm supposed to feel. I'm like, let's win the game first, guys. Let's win the game first.
But yeah, it felt good.