Ike Hilliard
Isaac Jason Hilliard is an American football coach and former wide receiver who is currently the Co-offensive coordinator/Wide receivers coach for California. He played primarily with the New York Giants.
Hilliard played college football for the Florida Gators, earning consensus All-American honors in 1996. He was a first-round pick by the New York Giants in the 1997 NFL draft. Hilliard also played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers before retiring in 2008.
Early life
Hilliard was born in Patterson, Louisiana in 1976. He attended Patterson High School, where he was a star high school football player for the Patterson Lumberjacks. During his senior year, he played quarterback, wingback and free safety. That year, he rushed for 737 yards and 12 touchdowns, caught 20 passes for 310 yards and two touchdowns, had 45 tackles and intercepted five passes. He was rated among the top 10 defensive backs in the Southeast, but his desire was to play wide receiver.College career
Hilliard accepted an athletic scholarship to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, where he played wide receiver for coach Steve Spurrier's Florida Gators football team from football team|1994] to 1996 although never having played the position before. During his three seasons as a Gator, the team won three SEC Championships in 1994, 1995, and 1996. As a junior in 1996, he was paired with fellow Gators receiver Reidel Anthony and both posted 1,000-yard seasons, and both Hilliard and Anthony were recognized as first-team All-Southeastern Conference selections and consensus first-team All-Americans, as the Gators won the Bowl Alliance national championship—their first-ever national football title. Hilliard's efforts made him a semi-finalist for the Fred Biletnikoff Award in 1996. The Gators finished the season with a record of 12–1 after a 52–20 victory over the top-ranked Florida State Seminoles in the 1997 Sugar Bowl. Hilliard had a sensational performance in the 1997 Sugar Bowl victory for Florida against their arch rival Florida State. His most well known play, known as the "stop and pop" occurred during this game, as he snagged a Danny Wuerffel pass, took one hard step towards the end zone, then stopped on a dime, avoiding Seminole defenders as he dashed the remaining 15 yards to the end zone. It was the second of a Sugar Bowl-record three touchdowns for Hilliard and it gave the Gators a 24–10 advantage in what ended as a 52–20 Florida victory. Memorably, he set three Sugar Bowl records against the Seminoles at the time: he had 150 receiving yards, including an 82-yard touchdown catch, and scored a total of three touchdowns for eighteen points.Hilliard was among the members of the 11th-anniversary class inducted into the Florida-Georgia Hall of Fame. Hilliard's signature game against Georgia came in 1995 when he hauled in five passes for 99 yards and two touchdowns, as the Gators claimed a 52–17 victory over the Bulldogs. He was inducted into the List of [University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame members|University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame] as a "Gator Great" in 2009.
Hilliard was honored as an SEC Legend in 2011. He was chosen for the Florida Football All-Century Team, chosen by Gator fans and compiled by The Gainesville Sun in the fall of 1999. Additionally, he was selected to the 100th-Anniversary Florida team that was selected in 2006 to celebrate a century of Florida football. Fans voted by mail and online.
SEC Record Book
Sources:- 2011 SEC Football Legend
- 1996 consensus All-American
- 5th in receiving touchdowns 1994–1996
- 18th in receiving yards per reception
- 1st wide-receiver combination in SEC history to have 1,000 yards receiving in the same season: Chris Doering with 1,045 and Hilliard with 1,008
Florida career records
Source:- 1st All-time in receiving touchdowns in a single game 1995
- 2nd All-time receiving touchdowns 1994–1996
- 4th All-time receiving touchdowns in a single season 1995
- 7th All-time in receiving yards 1994–1996
- 8th All-time receiving yards in a single game 1995
Sugar Bowl records
Sources:- Most receiving touchdowns
- 9th-most receiving yards
- 3rd-highest average yards per reception
Professional career
New York Giants
The New York Giants selected Hilliard in the first round of the 1997 NFL Draft. He played his first eight seasons for the Giants from to. He became a regular starter in, catching 51 passes in 16 games for 715 yards and two touchdowns. In his next season, he caught 72 passes for 996 yards for three touchdowns; this was the closest he came to a 1,000-yard season as a receiver, although he rushed three times for 16 yards with a touchdown to have 1,012 yards from scrimmage. In 2000, he played in fourteen games and caught 55 passes as the Giants made a run all the way to the Super Bowl. In the 2000 postseason, it was Hilliard who led players with receptions, catching 16 passes in three games for 220 yards and two touchdowns. His two scores each came in the NFC Championship Game, catching the first touchdown of the game and the penultimate score in a 41-0 destruction of the Minnesota Vikings to send the Giants to their first Super Bowl in a decade. In Super Bowl XXXV, he was targeted eleven times but caught just three passes for 30 yards as the Giants were beat 34-7 by the Baltimore Ravens.A string of injuries kept him off the field throughout his time with the Giants. During the second game of his rookie year, Hilliard was hit by Jacksonville safety Chris Hudson and sustained a sprained interspinous ligament between his sixth and seventh vertebrae. He underwent posterior spine stabilization surgery, which fused the two vertebrae. After an 8-month rehabilitation period, Hilliard was named an Ed Block Courage Award recipient in 1998, which are voted on by their teammates as role models of inspiration, sportsmanship, and courage. He continued at his level of play with disregard for his personal safety, which created a cringe-inducing medical record: bruised lungs and a bruised sternum in 2000, foot surgery before the 2001 season, and a dislocated shoulder in 2002.
With the Giants, Hilliard recorded 368 receptions for 4,630 receiving yards and 27 touchdowns. He currently ranks seventh in franchise history in receptions and tenth in receiving yards. He signed a one-day contract to retire with the Giants on July 30, 2010.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
On May 6, 2005, it was reported that Hilliard signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. During his first two seasons with Tampa Bay, he was used mainly as a third or fourth receiver, but in 2007, he started ten games, in which he made sixty-two receptions for 722 yards. During his time with the Bucs, he became a third down specialist, with 111 of 178 career catches resulting in a first down. Head coach Jon Gruden referred to him as "Third and Ike".On October 19, 2008, Hilliard refused to be carted off the field during a Sunday Night Football 20–10 win over the Seattle Seahawks. Seattle linebacker Leroy Hill made a helmet-to-helmet collision to Hilliard, as Seahawks linebacker Lofa Tatupu hit Hilliard from behind, forcing his body to go limp, after making a catch in the second quarter.
After four seasons with the team, Hilliard was released by the Buccaneers on February 25, 2009. He was one of five veterans that the Bucs released that day, the other four being wide receiver Joey Galloway, running back Warrick Dunn and linebackers Derrick Brooks and Cato June.
In his twelve-season NFL career, Hilliard appeared in 161 regular-season games, starting in 105, and made 546 catches for 6,397 yards and thirty-five touchdowns. He also had 126 rushing yards on sixteen attempts.