EL HOMBRE KNOWS SPORTS
At college campuses across America, incoming freshmen are learning their way to class, trying to cope with doing their own laundry and basically hoping some senior doesn’t hang them by their boxer-briefs from a lamppost in the quad.
Meanwhile at USC, Matt Barkley is getting ready for his first game as starting QB for the Trojans and trying to figure out in which order he’ll be dating the Song Girls this season. Sounds like a perfectly normal freshman orientation, doesn’t it? Or maybe it’s the perfect beginning to the ’09 college football season, which as usual has enough subplots to fill an entire network fall lineup.
BCS Follies: The idiocy has started already, and there hasn’t yet been a major-college snap in earnest. South Florida coach Jim Leavitt, who votes in the coaches’ poll, omitted Mississippi and Oregon from his pre-season top 25. He also put his own squad, which was hardly mentioned on other ballots, number 18. Some of his other choices included Florida State, Miami, Pitt, Rutgers and Cincinnati, all of which happen to be on the Bulls’ schedule. Some might excuse Leavitt’s poor judgment. After all, it is early. But his self-serving ballot proves how ridiculous it is to have coaches as part of the system to choose a national champion. The first BCS standings aren’t due until October, but you can tell we’re in for another season of stupidity. Leavitt’s votes are just the beginning.
I Got A Biiiiiiiig Mouth! El Hombre is no fan of Florida and its prickly coach Urban Meyer, but he will certainly be tuning in Sept. 19 when the Gators take on Tennessee. That’s because new Vols coach Lane Kiffin spent his off-season committing violations, making stupid proclamations and basically cheesing off everyone in the SEC. One of his targets was Meyer, whose sense of humor tends toward that of library investigator Lt. Bookman. So, when the Gators get a hold of Tennessee in the Swamp, things could get pretty ugly. Just remember, you can’t spell blowoUT without UT.
The Year of the Quarterback: By now, most college fans are sick of the hoopla over the nation’s top three returning QBs, defending Heisman winner Sam Bradford of Oklahoma, Florida’s St. Timothy of Tebow and Texas’ Colt McCoy. Expect to be rooting against each of them by the end of September, thanks to a guaranteed avalanche of attention they’ll be receiving. The good news is that there are plenty of other fine quarterbacks for fans to follow, and EH isn’t talking about Jevan Sneed of Mississippi or Oklahoma State’s Zac Robinson, who comprise part of the second-tier of breathlessly-hyped signal-callers. Make sure you pay attention to (in no particular order) Central Michigan dual threat Dan LeFevour, Oregon’s Jeremiah Masoli, Houston’s Case Keenum, Baylor’s Robert Griffin (especially Baylor’s Robert Griffin), Kansas’ Todd Reesing, South Florida’s Matt Grothe, BYU’s Max Hall, Nevada’s Colin Kaepernick and Boise State’s Kellen Moore. All are worth the price of admission and their success is unlikely to be jammed down our throats.
Gulag: Ann Arbor: It was a story Upton Sinclair would have loved. The young men worked long hours in the hot sun, without care for the regulations. Some Sundays they were forced to miss every NFL game in the name of self-improvement. The off-season was the worst, what with the forced labor and mean shouting man. If we didn’t know better, we’d think Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez had studied at the Joe Stalin Football Terror Academy. Instead, he made the mistake of angering some soft players who narced on him and his zealous staff. Did the Wolverine coaches break a few rules and take some liberties with their players? They did. (Wink.) Did they do things that were horribly different than what goes on at every big-time – even after last year’s 3-9 record, U-M is still “big time” (Ha! Beat you to it) – program? No. Rodriguez is in more trouble if he doesn’t win than because of his tough workouts and practice regimens. He didn’t do himself any favors by whimpering at his press conference earlier this week. But Rodriguez doesn’t deserve to be hung for doing what everybody else does. Hell, even Ohio State is sticking up for him. The guy has a lot to answer for, what with the loss to Toledo last year, but this shouldn’t haunt him. Go 6-6 this year, and that’s a different story.
The World of Heavy C: Meanwhile, in South Bend, another beleaguered coach takes aim at redemption. Notre Dame’s Charlie Weis begins his most important season with a clear mandate from the administration: play in a BCS bowl or get busy looking for work. Given the number of bridges he’s burned during his tenure, it’s unlikely too many other places will be looking to hire him, so he had better win. To make matters worse, it appears as if the fans have turned on him. Witness the billboard above South Bend’s Linebacker Inn: “Best wishes to Charlie Weis in the fifth year of his college coaching internship.” Ouch. The bad news for Irish haters is that a light schedule, combined with the team’s best talent in a while, could put ND in that BCS equation – and save Weis’ sizeable backside.
How It’s Going Down: To hear some people say it, Florida will go 14-0 to become the Greatest Team Ever and establish itself as a 33-point favorite over the 1945 Army squad, a 10-point fave over the ’72 USC Trojans and basically have the horses to challenge an all-time all-star team. That may happen, but the Gators have to survive games with Georgia, LSU, Florida State and (one would imagine) the SEC West champ. They’ll then have to get by someone in the BCS title game. If that’s Ohio State, which will likely run the table if it beats USC Sept. 12, then crown the Gators. But, if as El Hombre thinks, it’s Texas, look out. The Steers are ready to make a big charge and win it all. They’ll play better defense this year, and QB Colt McCoy might just complete 80% of his passes en route to the Heisman.
* * *
EL HOMBRE SEZ: Forbes has published its list of NFL teams’ values, and the Cowboys (surprise!) topped the list at $1.65 billion. Wonder if that counts the money they’ll need to spend next off-season to correct the scoreboard fiasco owner Jerry Jones faces. Do-overs? What is this, touch football? Wait until the lawsuits start when players suffer serious injuries from running downfield on punts for the second and third times on the same play…Bloody Sock Schilling has expressed interest in the Massachusetts Senate seat vacated by the late Ted Kennedy. Sounds like a perfect match: Self-serving loudmouth enters the political arena. And if things don’t work out with the Massachusetts electorate, Schilling can demand a trade to Arizona…Why in the world would anybody want to trade for childish Denver receiver Brandon Marshall? He can’t behave himself on the field, and he’s one more domestic abuse claim away from getting suspended. Kudos to Denver coach Josh McDaniels for not tolerating any of his malarkey. Marshall is bad news and deserves to be treated like toxic waste by the rest of the NFL…New Florida International coach Isiah Thomas has finally stopped protesting the identity of his team’s first opponent. He thought the Golden Panthers would face Ohio State, but organizers of the Coaches vs. Cancer tournament pitted FIU against North Carolina, and Thomas threw a tantrum. Take your beating like a man, Isiah, and consider it penance for what you did to the CBA and the Knicks.
* * *
YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? Wednesday night, the Phillies proved exactly why they are hardly slam-dunk favorites to defend successfully their World Series title. On a night when hits – much less the team’s calling card, the three-run homer – were in short supply, they had no shot at all against Brad Penny and the Giants. Penny, you may remember, was cut by the Red Sox after a couple months of pitching batting practice to opposing hitters. Wednesday night, the Phillies made him look like Carl Hubbell with their familiar habit of swinging at everything and failing to take advantage of any success they managed. The bullpen is a big reason for concern, but a bigger problem this year is the team’s inability and seeming reluctance to manufacture runs. It’s almost as if the Phillies disdain the scratched-out score, choosing instead to chase the glamour of the long ball. Sunday night, espn’s Joe Morgan revealed the Phillies were last in the NL in “productive outs.” Those are the ground balls that move runners or fly balls that bring people in from third base. Once the weather turns cold, the ball doesn’t travel as far, and the homer total drops. If the Phillies want to win in October, they had better become smarter at the plate, or they’ll be making plenty of hacks like Penny look like all-stars.
* * *
AND ANOTHER THING: Point guard Ricky Rubio has opted for two more years in the Spanish League, rather than play for the Minnesota Timberwolves, despite his professed desire to be in the NBA. Calling any arrangement he would make with the T-Wolves “complicated,” Rubio stayed put. Not exactly the best start to David Kahn’s tenure as GM in Minnesota. At least he drafted another point guard, Jonny Flynn, so the team won’t miss Rubio – except at the box office. Given the situation, the chances he will play for the T-Wolves are slim, since two years from now, he’ll likely demand a trade. Thanks to Kahn’s draft-day gaffe, we’ll probably see the gifted point man in a Lakers or Knicks jersey when he finally comes across the pond. Nice work, David.
-EH-
Showing posts with label Sam Bradford. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sam Bradford. Show all posts
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Thursday, December 11, 2008
The 2008 Heisman Goes To...
EL HOMBRE KNOWS SPORTS
In November 1968, Yale was charging toward its first perfect season in eight years and only second since ’23, when Thomas Albert Dwight (T.A.D.) Jones was telling his young Eli charges “You are now going to play football against Harvard. Never again in your whole life will you do anything so important.”
The Bulldogs understood fully the gravity of their pending season finale with the Johnnies. Triumph, and immortality would be theirs. Senior quarterback Brian Dowling was particularly intent on winning, since he hadn’t suffered a defeat on the gridiron in a game he had finished since 7th grade, an accomplishment that earned him the nickname, “God,” on the Yale campus and a caricature in Doonesbury a few years later.
For three-plus quarters, God and his teammates kept things under control, rolling to a 29-13 lead. College football fans know what happened next. The Crimson launched one of the most amazing comebacks in football history, scoring 16 points in the final 0:29 to “beat” Yale, 29-29. During those last frantic moments, when everything was unraveling for Dowling and the Eli, he stood on the sideline next to coach Carm Cozza and begged to go in on defense. “Being a quarterback, you know what the other passer is trying to do,” Dowling said. Cozza refused, in part because he couldn’t believe the Crimson would complete its comeback and in part because had Harvard succeeded while Dowling was on the field, Cozza would have faced ridicule. “Don’t think it didn’t enter my mind,” Cozza said. “It did.”
After watching Tim Tebow play for Florida this season, it’s hard to imagine he would have behaved any differently than Dowling, had he found himself in a similar situation. While other quarterbacks might have sat on the sideline stewing but relieved that any misfortune about to befall their school was somebody else’s fault, Tebow would have had his helmet on, asking to be put in at linebacker or safety, the better to end the nonsense. The Gator junior isn’t just a quarterback; he’s a football player. And when it came time for El Hombre to cast his 2008 Heisman Trophy ballot – a whopping two days early this year – Tebow was the choice.
There will be a substantial groundswell for each of the other finalists, Oklahoma statistical machine Sam Bradford and Texas all-purpose phenom Colt McCoy. But since the rules of the Heisman direct voters to choose “the most outstanding college football player in the United States for 2008,” and not the player with the gaudiest numbers, the choice is clearly Tebow.
Selecting Tebow has nothing to do with making him the second back-to-back winner in Heisman history. (Archie Griffin – 1975-75 – from the Horrible School was the first.) It’s more about the evidence that while Bradford was amazing and McCoy indispensable, Tebow had a greater impact on his team’s success and also played the game at a higher and more complete level than anyone else. Ask yourself a question; whom would you rather have to start a team, Tebow or anyone else? If you’re being honest, it’s hard to pick against the Gator.
Back in mid-November, El Hombre asked an SEC defensive coordinator whether he felt Tebow was playing better than he did last year, despite a significant drop in statistics. The answer was yes. He was operating Florida’s offense more completely and lifting the Gator attack to a higher level than he had the previous year. Yes, in Percy Harvin and young speedsters Chris Rainey and Jeffrey Demps, he had some more weapons than in ’07, but while Harvin was an all-purpose sensation, and the others had tremendous big-play talent, none would have achieved anywhere near what he did without Tebow’s facility for the UF system. As the year went on, it also became clear that Tebow’s will to win, especially after the upset loss to Mississippi, was a huge factor in the team’s run to an SEC title and a berth in the BCS “national championship game.”
This is not to disparage Bradford or McCoy. All McCoy did was lead his team to an 11-1 record, including a neutral-site triumph over Oklahoma that apparently didn’t matter in the “every week is a playoff” argument favored by BCS chowderheads. He threw for 3,445 yards and 32 touchdowns, completed an obscene 77.6% of his passes and led Texas with 576 yards rushing (4.5 average). Not too shabby. On the Hombre ballot, McCoy checked in at number two, with only Tebow’s ferocious competitiveness separating the pair.
Bradford’s stats are even more jaw-dropping. The OU sophomore threw for 4,464 yards and 48 touchdowns while completing 68.3% of his throws. He led the Sooners to an unprecedented five straight 60-point orgies (and four others that topped 50), a staggering assault on the scoreboard that made some of Barry Switzer’s old Oklahoma wishbone carnivals look like grind-it-out operations. The one check against Bradford in the ultimate ledger is the Sooner ground game, which aided him immensely. Two OU backs, DeMarco Murray and Chris Brown, rushed for at least 1,000 yards, and the pair combined for 34 touchdowns. It makes one wonder whether Bradford would have had the same level of success without such tremendous balance.
As for Texas Tech’s Graham Harrell, who was a victim of “politics,” according to Red Raider coach Mike Leach – yeah, right – consider that a bulk of his prodigious passing total came against overwhelmed opponents (including two I-AA clubs) and in the biggest game in school history, he and his frightened teammates performed with the same valor of the French army in the path of advancing panzer divisions back in ‘40.
So, the choice is Tebow, and not because he’s going to be a great pro or has the biggest numeric resume. It’s because when one looks for the “most outstanding football player” around, it’s best to pick the man who would be willing and able to do things beyond his job description to help his team win. Had Carm Cozza let Dowling loose against Harvard in ’68, he might have quelled the uprising. Forty years later, Tebow has the same talent and drive. That’s certainly worth another trophy.
* * *
EL HOMBRE SEZ: The Yankees made quite a splash by promising to pay C.C. Sabathia an average of $23 million for each of the next seven seasons. When will these teams learn that spending that much on starting pitching is a huge risk? First off, Sabathia had to be convinced to play in New York, so a tabloid-induced meltdown is possible. Secondly, the lessons of Kevin Brown, Barry Zito and others are apparently lost on the Yanks. It looks great now, but check back in a couple years…The jurisprudence department has been busy lately, what with Quick Draw Burress and O.J. Simpson’s making headlines. The real sin of O.J.’s pending incarceration is that he will now lose nine years of prime investigating time to look for the real killers…China has admitted that 36 players in its professional basketball league are older than they claimed, a shocking revelation in the wake of the Olympics, when women were spotted breast-feeding some of the Chinese female gymnasts…Creditors have objected to Michael Vick’s bankruptcy statement, citing large, unspecified cash advances – in the millions – over the past couple years and wondering if that dough has been stashed somewhere. From here, it looks completely reasonable. After all, it costs a lot of money to take care of dogs, what with the food, shelter, grooming, electric cattle prods, teeth sharpening…
* * *
YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? Last night’s loss to the Cavaliers once again revealed the Sixers’ inability to play defense and amplified the team’s offensive confusion. But at least the team learned the Andre Iguodala is better suited at small forward than shooting guard. What a revelation! Everybody in the city knew that, except the team’s management, which lavished a fat contract on Iguodala during the off-season, despite having a budding young star – Thaddeus Young – at the position as well. Now that the two guard experiment is over with A.I. Jr., the Sixers are faced with a glut of talent at one spot and inadequate forces at the pivot and the two. They are up against the cap and in danger of losing point man Andre Miller after the season. Oh, and don’t go looking for any passion from the team, because it’s not there. What began as such a promising season for the team is threatening to crash and burn. Plenty of time remains, but things are getting scary.
* * *
AND ANOTHER THING: Researchers continue to zero in on an accurate urine test that will reveal whether athletes used HGH. Talk about a bonanza. Let’s hope the various professional sporting organizations across the world have saved specimens properly, in order to test them down the road, once the scientists perfect the process. The most pressing need for the test is in Majoke League Baseball, where steroid cheats have been outed – sort of – but the HGH users remain at large, with a few exceptions. Since a few years of samples remain, the possibility that plenty more cheaters can be identified is reason for optimism. Give those guys as much money and whatever resources they need, so they can get the job done.
--EH--
In November 1968, Yale was charging toward its first perfect season in eight years and only second since ’23, when Thomas Albert Dwight (T.A.D.) Jones was telling his young Eli charges “You are now going to play football against Harvard. Never again in your whole life will you do anything so important.”
The Bulldogs understood fully the gravity of their pending season finale with the Johnnies. Triumph, and immortality would be theirs. Senior quarterback Brian Dowling was particularly intent on winning, since he hadn’t suffered a defeat on the gridiron in a game he had finished since 7th grade, an accomplishment that earned him the nickname, “God,” on the Yale campus and a caricature in Doonesbury a few years later.
For three-plus quarters, God and his teammates kept things under control, rolling to a 29-13 lead. College football fans know what happened next. The Crimson launched one of the most amazing comebacks in football history, scoring 16 points in the final 0:29 to “beat” Yale, 29-29. During those last frantic moments, when everything was unraveling for Dowling and the Eli, he stood on the sideline next to coach Carm Cozza and begged to go in on defense. “Being a quarterback, you know what the other passer is trying to do,” Dowling said. Cozza refused, in part because he couldn’t believe the Crimson would complete its comeback and in part because had Harvard succeeded while Dowling was on the field, Cozza would have faced ridicule. “Don’t think it didn’t enter my mind,” Cozza said. “It did.”
After watching Tim Tebow play for Florida this season, it’s hard to imagine he would have behaved any differently than Dowling, had he found himself in a similar situation. While other quarterbacks might have sat on the sideline stewing but relieved that any misfortune about to befall their school was somebody else’s fault, Tebow would have had his helmet on, asking to be put in at linebacker or safety, the better to end the nonsense. The Gator junior isn’t just a quarterback; he’s a football player. And when it came time for El Hombre to cast his 2008 Heisman Trophy ballot – a whopping two days early this year – Tebow was the choice.
There will be a substantial groundswell for each of the other finalists, Oklahoma statistical machine Sam Bradford and Texas all-purpose phenom Colt McCoy. But since the rules of the Heisman direct voters to choose “the most outstanding college football player in the United States for 2008,” and not the player with the gaudiest numbers, the choice is clearly Tebow.
Selecting Tebow has nothing to do with making him the second back-to-back winner in Heisman history. (Archie Griffin – 1975-75 – from the Horrible School was the first.) It’s more about the evidence that while Bradford was amazing and McCoy indispensable, Tebow had a greater impact on his team’s success and also played the game at a higher and more complete level than anyone else. Ask yourself a question; whom would you rather have to start a team, Tebow or anyone else? If you’re being honest, it’s hard to pick against the Gator.
Back in mid-November, El Hombre asked an SEC defensive coordinator whether he felt Tebow was playing better than he did last year, despite a significant drop in statistics. The answer was yes. He was operating Florida’s offense more completely and lifting the Gator attack to a higher level than he had the previous year. Yes, in Percy Harvin and young speedsters Chris Rainey and Jeffrey Demps, he had some more weapons than in ’07, but while Harvin was an all-purpose sensation, and the others had tremendous big-play talent, none would have achieved anywhere near what he did without Tebow’s facility for the UF system. As the year went on, it also became clear that Tebow’s will to win, especially after the upset loss to Mississippi, was a huge factor in the team’s run to an SEC title and a berth in the BCS “national championship game.”
This is not to disparage Bradford or McCoy. All McCoy did was lead his team to an 11-1 record, including a neutral-site triumph over Oklahoma that apparently didn’t matter in the “every week is a playoff” argument favored by BCS chowderheads. He threw for 3,445 yards and 32 touchdowns, completed an obscene 77.6% of his passes and led Texas with 576 yards rushing (4.5 average). Not too shabby. On the Hombre ballot, McCoy checked in at number two, with only Tebow’s ferocious competitiveness separating the pair.
Bradford’s stats are even more jaw-dropping. The OU sophomore threw for 4,464 yards and 48 touchdowns while completing 68.3% of his throws. He led the Sooners to an unprecedented five straight 60-point orgies (and four others that topped 50), a staggering assault on the scoreboard that made some of Barry Switzer’s old Oklahoma wishbone carnivals look like grind-it-out operations. The one check against Bradford in the ultimate ledger is the Sooner ground game, which aided him immensely. Two OU backs, DeMarco Murray and Chris Brown, rushed for at least 1,000 yards, and the pair combined for 34 touchdowns. It makes one wonder whether Bradford would have had the same level of success without such tremendous balance.
As for Texas Tech’s Graham Harrell, who was a victim of “politics,” according to Red Raider coach Mike Leach – yeah, right – consider that a bulk of his prodigious passing total came against overwhelmed opponents (including two I-AA clubs) and in the biggest game in school history, he and his frightened teammates performed with the same valor of the French army in the path of advancing panzer divisions back in ‘40.
So, the choice is Tebow, and not because he’s going to be a great pro or has the biggest numeric resume. It’s because when one looks for the “most outstanding football player” around, it’s best to pick the man who would be willing and able to do things beyond his job description to help his team win. Had Carm Cozza let Dowling loose against Harvard in ’68, he might have quelled the uprising. Forty years later, Tebow has the same talent and drive. That’s certainly worth another trophy.
* * *
EL HOMBRE SEZ: The Yankees made quite a splash by promising to pay C.C. Sabathia an average of $23 million for each of the next seven seasons. When will these teams learn that spending that much on starting pitching is a huge risk? First off, Sabathia had to be convinced to play in New York, so a tabloid-induced meltdown is possible. Secondly, the lessons of Kevin Brown, Barry Zito and others are apparently lost on the Yanks. It looks great now, but check back in a couple years…The jurisprudence department has been busy lately, what with Quick Draw Burress and O.J. Simpson’s making headlines. The real sin of O.J.’s pending incarceration is that he will now lose nine years of prime investigating time to look for the real killers…China has admitted that 36 players in its professional basketball league are older than they claimed, a shocking revelation in the wake of the Olympics, when women were spotted breast-feeding some of the Chinese female gymnasts…Creditors have objected to Michael Vick’s bankruptcy statement, citing large, unspecified cash advances – in the millions – over the past couple years and wondering if that dough has been stashed somewhere. From here, it looks completely reasonable. After all, it costs a lot of money to take care of dogs, what with the food, shelter, grooming, electric cattle prods, teeth sharpening…
* * *
YOU GOT A PROBLEM WITH THAT? Last night’s loss to the Cavaliers once again revealed the Sixers’ inability to play defense and amplified the team’s offensive confusion. But at least the team learned the Andre Iguodala is better suited at small forward than shooting guard. What a revelation! Everybody in the city knew that, except the team’s management, which lavished a fat contract on Iguodala during the off-season, despite having a budding young star – Thaddeus Young – at the position as well. Now that the two guard experiment is over with A.I. Jr., the Sixers are faced with a glut of talent at one spot and inadequate forces at the pivot and the two. They are up against the cap and in danger of losing point man Andre Miller after the season. Oh, and don’t go looking for any passion from the team, because it’s not there. What began as such a promising season for the team is threatening to crash and burn. Plenty of time remains, but things are getting scary.
* * *
AND ANOTHER THING: Researchers continue to zero in on an accurate urine test that will reveal whether athletes used HGH. Talk about a bonanza. Let’s hope the various professional sporting organizations across the world have saved specimens properly, in order to test them down the road, once the scientists perfect the process. The most pressing need for the test is in Majoke League Baseball, where steroid cheats have been outed – sort of – but the HGH users remain at large, with a few exceptions. Since a few years of samples remain, the possibility that plenty more cheaters can be identified is reason for optimism. Give those guys as much money and whatever resources they need, so they can get the job done.
--EH--
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