Soul Survivor

The twins are not thinking about multiplying as they polish off the pizza—just about surviving. Just a few more mat drills remain to be completed. To a man, ex-Seminoles who've gone on to NFL two-a-days in July or to Marine Corps boot camp agree: Nothing compares to Florida State's off-season mat drills. Former Seminoles tailback John Merna, a Marine, called the drills "a true test of a man's physical and moral courage." Former Seminoles defensive lineman James Roberson said they were like "stepping into a gas chamber." Players who had finished four years of them came back and thanked Coach Bobby Bowden for the rewards they reaped from them and for the lessons they learned about themselves and about life.

The drills are a battery of noncontact running, jumping, crouching, diving and rolling exercises that Bowden borrowed from Bear Bryant nearly five decades ago. "We want to push you to the breaking point," is how Bowden explained them to players. "Not over it, but to it."

Trash cans are placed within staggering distance of the three stations through which the players rotate. Both twins have already vomited into them. Ten Seminoles vomited on the first day of mat drills the previous year, some so intimidated that they puked before the drills even began. Former FSU offensive lineman Eric Luallen, a Tallahassee sports-talk-show host, wrote a column about mat drills on a website just a week and a half before. "It was always chilling to hear [former Seminoles assistant] Chuck Amato address the team the first day of mat drills," Luallen wrote. "While he would point out the trash cans and what they were to be used for, he would always throw in this confidence-building quote: 'Just remember, gentlemen, the body is a wonderful machine. You will pass out before you die. If you pass out, the trainers will take care of you.' "

It's 11:30 p.m. Devaughn's got a head cold that he caught from Devard, and mat drills begin in six hours and 15 minutes. Devaughn pops a couple of nighttime cold and flu pills. The twins reread the New Year's goals on their wall posters. Devaughn has dared to write All-America first team on his and keeps urging Devard to take the dare too. They say their prayers, asking God to be there at dawn when they need him, and they fall asleep.

Bang! Bang! Bang! That's the big metal spoon striking door after door, spreading dread through Burt Reynolds Hall at 5 a.m. Bang! Bang! Bang! That's the traditional wake-up call for Florida State mat drills. Bang! Bang! Bang! Devard could almost hear it four months later as he stood and peered at the door at 3 a.m. on a summer night, because someone else lived there and he could no longer search inside.

There they go, out that door on their final morning together, trudging down those stairs, bludgeoned by fatigue. Into the darkness, onto the dirt road through the construction zone, taking the short walk to Moore Athletic Center.

No time for breakfast or to brush their teeth. No time for more than a few swallows of water. Silence between them, except for Devaughn's one remark: "I can't wait for this to be over and for us to go home for spring break." Devard nods. They enter the trainer's room, where Devaughn gets his sore ankle wrapped. They go upstairs and stretch on the mats in the Rubber Room. The bullhorn shrieks at 5:45. Time for hell.

Devaughn and Devard go separate ways with their position groups. Devaughn completes his first two segments in the gym downstairs. Short sprints, running drills through ropes and agility drills, crouched beneath PVC pipes. The twins pass each other in the hallway between stations. Devard sees the faraway look in Devaughn's eyes. No time to speak or gulp from the water fountain as the coaches hurry the players to their next tasks. Devard touches Devaughn's hand to give him strength.

Devaughn ascends the stairs. Into the fire. Into the Rubber Room, where players form lines of four on the mats, legs pistoning furiously, and at the order or gesture of a coach...hit the floor! Roll left! Roll right! Jump up! Sprint! Again and again, and then once more if anyone in your foursome can't keep up. Peer pressure builds, because no one wants to make his buddies repeat, or get a failing grade and an order to report at 5 a.m. for an extra session back-to-back with a scheduled one. No one wants the coaches to win, to snap his will, because that's the dynamic at work: Us against Them.

No one, most of all Devaughn, who's feeling it happen again: the cramps and the dizziness and then the blackness, the world going dark the way it did the week before, when he vomited and passed out. Quit? Be the weak link? The kid who coded his computer to pipe out the FSU fight song every time he turned it on, the kid who never missed a day of classes in four years of high school, the two-way player they called the Beast in high school because he kept coming back from the dead like a monster in the movies?