Florida football: 5 great players who didn’t live up to the NFL hype

Of the biggest draft busts in Florida history, defensive end Derrick Harvey has to be way up there. Harvey spent four years in Gainesville before becoming the No. 8 overall pick by the Jacksonville Jaguars in the 2008 NFL Draft. He was a huge part of the Gators’ pass rush during Urban Meyer’s first national championship as a college head coach.

Harvey was the MVP of the BCS National Championship Game in 2007 vs. the Ohio State Buckeyes, a program Meyer would later lead. The Gators stomped the Buckeyes right out of the gate and Harvey was set for a monster junior season in Gainesville. Though he was a two-time All-SEC Second Team player, Harvey never emerged as the superstar in college all thought he’d be.

Harvey declared for the 2008 NFL Draft after his redshirt junior season. He was the third of four defensive ends taken in the first round that spring. What transpired in Jacksonville was a massive holdout as a rookie and an underwhelming three-year stint in North Florida. Harvey was cut by the Jaguars ahead of the 2011 NFL season before signing on with the Denver Broncos for one year.

In 52 career games over four seasons, Harvey had only eight sacks. He then joined the Cincinnati Bengals in the 2012 offseason but didn’t make the team out of training camp. Overall, Harvey became just another bad first-round pick in the Jaguars organization. By the time he arrived in North Florida, they were about to enter their worst decade in franchise history. It didn’t work out.

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