If you want to call Louisville junior quarterback Teddy Bridgewater "Gump" (as in Forrest Gump), that's fine with him.
Bridgewater, a leading Heisman contender, has been called "Gump" since his days in high school at Miami Northwestern. It was a moniker he shared with his backup, E.J. Hilliard, and to them, it was a badge of honor.
Bridgewater told the Louisville Courier-Journal that Hilliard was a fan of the movie, which starred Tom Hanks as the fictional character Forrest Gump (who famously played football at Alabama) and won the Oscar for best picture in 1994.
Bridgewater on Hilliard: "All of his jokes were related to the movie Forrest Gump, so everyone would call him 'Gump.'"
The two quarterbacks embraced the nickname.
"On the field, we just started calling each other 'Gump,'" Bridgewater said.
They decided it would be an acronym for "Great Under Major Pressure."
Hilliard now is a sophomore backup quarterback at FIU, which plays at Louisville on Sept. 21.
"It means a lot because it's what we try to stand for while we're out there on the field," Bridgewater said. "... We take pride in going by that acronym."
Mike Huguenin can be reached at mike.huguenin@nfl.com. You also can follow him on Twitter @MikeHuguenin.