The Sporting News has named USC’s Matt Leinart its college player of the decade.
Sounds right to me. And it gives me an excuse to post these clips…
(Warning: the audio on the second clip is substantially louder than the audio on the first. Adjust your volume accordingly!)
Commenting on this post over on Facebook, Mike Marchand writes:
My response? I disagree. Not that you can’t make a case for Tebow over Leinart — you certainly can. But it’s not a clear-cut case, not the sort of thing where, if someone reaches a different conclusion, it means they “botched” the analysis “badly.” Reasonable people can disagree about this.
Re: national championships, Tebow has won 2, but he wasn’t the starting QB for the first of the 2. Meanwhile, Leinart has also won 2 — not 1 1/2, as there’s no such thing as a half-championship (I’d say the same if one of Florida’s championships were an AP title, or if an LSU player from the 2003-04 team was in this discussion) — and Leinart was the starting QB for both of those championship teams. So I’d argue that Leinart is slightly ahead in this category: if anything, Tebow, as a non-starter on his first championship team, is the one who should be credited with only “1 1/2” titles. At worst for Leinart, this category is a tie.
(If you don’t buy that USC’s 2003-04 title counts as a “full” championship, consider this: if you look at how the seasons transpired, that USC championship team is essentially identical to Florida’s 2008-09 championship team: a loss in the last week of September to an unranked opponent — though at least USC’s loss was on the road — followed by rampaging through the rest of their schedule, leading to them being ranked #1 heading into the bowls. The only difference is that the system changed. If the current BCS rules had been in place in 2003-04, USC would have gone to the BCS title game (and beaten LSU, and short-circuited a years-long pissing contest between Tigers fans and Trojans fans). But there was a different system then, and so USC went to the Rose Bowl instead, ranked #1 in both polls, and killed Michigan, and won the only national championship trophy that it had the opportunity to win. How does the change in the BCS formula make Tebow a better player than Leinart??)
Re: Heismans, they’ve each won one. No difference there.
Re: Leinart having “the help of another Heisman winner in his backfield,” that’s true, but let’s not kid ourselves — it’s not as if Tim Tebow is some sort of Eli Manning-at-Ole Miss type, carrying a team on his shoulders without being surrounded by tremendous talent. Urban Meyer’s Florida is the biggest talent factory this side of, well, Pete Carroll’s USC. Both players had/have no shortage of supporting-cast help.
Meanwhile, the Bush factor cuts both ways, because if Bush isn’t on that team, Matt Leinart very possibly wins two Heismans. Granted, Vince Young finished ahead of Leinart in the ’05 voting, and maybe he gets it — maybe. But let’s not let the Rose Bowl, which happened after the Heisman voting, influence our thinking. If Bush isn’t there, it’s quite possible Leinart inherits most of his votes, given that they played for the same team. We’ll never know, of course. But Bush clearly took some of the spotlight off Leinart’s greatness at the same time that he made Leinart’s life easier on the field (and occasionally gave him a much-needed push… ahem).
More significantly: Leinart won 2 BCS bowls, and played in another, barely losing one of the greatest games ever played. Tebow has led Florida to one BCS victory (two if you count the year he didn’t start) and… a Capital One Bowl loss to Michigan, the same year the Wolverines lost to Appy State. That doesn’t exactly scream GREATEST PLAYER OF THE DECADE, does it?
Also: Tim Tebow never led his team to a 34-game winning streak. Not even close! His longest winning streak is the one they’re on now, 13 games. In 2007, the year they lost to Appy State’s favorite Ann Arbor punching bag, they went 9-4! Matt Leinart’s Trojans never went 9-4 — never lost most than a single game in a season, in fact. Indeed, Tebow’s four losses in 2007 are twice as many as Leinart lost in his entire career as USC’s starter. (And Leinart certainly never lost to anyone as mediocre as 2007 Michigan.)
And, before anyone comes back with some bullshit about how it’s so much harder to go undefeated in the SEC than it is in the Pac-10, consider the Trojans’ experience since Leinart left. USC hasn’t had a single undefeated season in conference play since 2005. Leinart & co. only made going undefeated in the Pac-10 look relatively easy. As we’ve all learned since 2006, it’s actually quite goddamn hard.
Also consider: Florida’s non-conference opponents in the Tebow era (2007-09) have been Western Kentucky, Troy (twice), Florida Atlantic, Hawaii, Miami, The Citadel, Charleston Southern, Florida International, and of course Florida State (three times). I’ll give you FSU and Miami, but otherwise that’s complete horses**t. And — I almost can’t believe it’s true, but it is — the ONLY nonconference road game Florida has played in the Tebow Era was at Florida State last year. That’s IT!
USC, meanwhile, in the Leinart Era (2003-05) played at Auburn, BYU (home & home) Hawaii (home & home), at Virginia Tech, vs. Colorado State, Arkansas, Fresno State, and of course Notre Dame (three times, twice on the road). That’s six nonconference road games, to Florida’s one, and 4 of the 6 are against BCS teams.
Roughly speaking, USC’s home games vs. Hawaii and BYU games cancel out Florida’s Hawaii game and one of its Troy games; USC’s Colorado State home game cancels out Florida’s other Troy game. Florida State and Notre Dame cancel each other out (that’s being slightly generous to Florida, since I’m ignoring that two of the ND games were on the road, vs. just one of the FSU games — a coincidence of timing, admittedly). Miami at home cancels out Arkansas at home (perhaps slightly generous to USC, evening things out). That leaves:
FLORIDA: Western Kentucky, Florida Atlantic, The Citadel, Charleston Southern, Florida International, all at home
USC: at Virginia Tech, at Auburn, at BYU, at Hawaii, at home vs. Fresno State (a top 10 team at the time)
Are you freaking’ kidding me??? Even if the SEC is slightly tougher than the Pac-10, the difficulty of the Trojans’ non-conference schedule more than cancels it out. Yet Tebow’s Gators are 25-5 (.833), or 38-6 (.864) if you count his freshman year (in which the nonconference slate was only slightly less pathetic), when he wasn’t a starter; Leinart’s Trojans were 37-2 (.949).
Come to think of it, as I go through this exercise, I’m less and less convinced that there is a reasonable case for Tebow, never mind a clear-cut one!
Now… if Tebow leads Florida to an undefeated season this year (which would put them on a 24-game winning streak), and wins his second Heisman, then he’ll have a case, maybe even a clear-cut case. But right now? Puh. Unless getting through college as a virgin is a criterion — something we know Leinart didn’t accomplish, heh — I’m saying the Sporting News made the right choice here.
But it’s not a clear-cut case, not the sort of thing where, if someone reaches a different conclusion, it means they “botched” the analysis “badly.” Reasonable people can disagree about this.
Most of the reason for the “botching” relates to your admission at the end — the jury isn’t out yet. Tebow’s case for Player Of The Decade isn’t finished. I realize we live in a time where VH1 couldn’t wait until the end of the decade to air “I Love The [Whatever The Hell We’re Calling This Decade],” but TSN‘s decision is irresponsible at best and potentially disastrous at worst. If Florida wins the national championship (which I realize will not be in the ’00s*, but is the culmination of this season), I think Tebow wins by unanimous decision; if he also wins the Heisman (again) I think he wins by knockout.
Re: national championships, Tebow has won 2, but he wasn’t the starting QB for the first of the 2.
No, but he wasn’t exactly holding a clipboard, either. The only reason he didn’t start is because Urban Meyer didn’t want to bench a senior in favor of a freshman. But, quite brilliantly, Meyer still added Tebow to the playbook to the point where he was the second-most important part of the Gators’ offense that year. In the National Championship Game, he had two touchdowns (one passing, one rushing) to Leak’s one. (Leak still won the MVP, though, for reasons I can’t fathom.)
Meanwhile, Leinart has also won 2 — not 1 1/2, as there’s no such thing as a half-championship (I’d say the same if one of Florida’s championships were an AP title
I appreciate your magnanimity, but the fact remains that one of USC’s championships is tainted, celebrated as it is by two and only two groups of people: the Associated Press and USC fans. I agree that the whole damn system is stupidly arranged, but it’s the only one we’ve got, and on that ledger the score is inarguable: Florida 2, USC 1½.
(If you don’t buy that USC’s 2003-04 title counts as a “full” championship, consider this: if you look at how the seasons transpired, that USC championship team is essentially identical to Florida’s 2008-09 championship team: a loss in the last week of September to an unranked opponent
So disingenuous. Ole Miss was unranked when they played Florida last year only because they were unheralded. They went on to beat LSU and Texas Tech and finish in the top 15 (providing them the very platform they so miserably teetered off last night). But the year USC lost to Cal, the Bears were every bit as mediocre as their 8-6 record would indicate.
If the current BCS rules had been in place in 2003-04, USC would have gone to the BCS title game (and beaten LSU, and short-circuited a years-long pissing contest between Tigers fans and Trojans fans).
Hold on there, cowboy; I won’t let you just claim that one, either. I agree that LSU vs. USC would have been a better title match, but in the game that actually happened, the Tigers held the year’s most prolific offense (led by that season’s Heisman winner) to virtually nothing. Besides, as you noted, in 2003 USC couldn’t even beat Cal on the road; the national championship game that year was played in New Orleans. As Notre Dame can tell you: good luck.
Re: Leinart having “the help of another Heisman winner in his backfield,” that’s true, but let’s not kid ourselves — it’s not as if Tim Tebow is some sort of Eli Manning-at-Ole Miss type, carrying a team on his shoulders without being surrounded by tremendous talent. Urban Meyer’s Florida is the biggest talent factory this side of, well, Pete Carroll’s USC. Both players had/have no shortage of supporting-cast help.
Florida has been tremendous at recruiting (it was the only thing Ron Zook did well), but this decade saw nothing like the talent that went through USC. Go ahead and check out the NFL Draft history if you don’t believe me.
And downplay Reggie Bush’s role on Leinart’s teams all you want, but consider this: in 2004, when USC won its (only) consensus national championship and Matt Leinart won the Heisman Trophy, the team gave their MVP award to . . . Reggie Bush.
Meanwhile, the Bush factor cuts both ways, because if Bush isn’t on that team, Matt Leinart very possibly wins two Heismans. Granted, Vince Young finished ahead of Leinart in the ‘05 voting, and maybe he gets it — maybe. But let’s not let the Rose Bowl, which happened after the Heisman voting, influence our thinking. If Bush isn’t there, it’s quite possible Leinart inherits most of his votes, given that they played for the same team. We’ll never know, of course. But Bush clearly took some of the spotlight off Leinart’s greatness at the same time that he made Leinart’s life easier on the field (and occasionally gave him a much-needed push… ahem).
And that’s why Leinart would never have won the second Heisman: because without Reggie Bush USC would have lost to Notre Dame (maybe also Arizona State) in 2005, and Leinart almost certainly finishes behind Vince Young AND Brady Quinn.
That’s right, I said it. Against Notre Dame, Brady Quinn was every bit Leinart’s equal if not better. ND’s defense (later exposed by Troy Smith and Ted Ginn) humbled Matt Leinart and LenDale White. Leinart finished the game 17 for 32. He did have 300 receiving yards, but zero touchdowns and two interceptions. (Quinn’s numbers: 19-35, 264 yards, 2 TD (one passing, one rushing), one pick — against a MUCH better defense.) White had ten carries for 26 yards. But Reggie Bush — as he was in basically every game he played in college — was unstoppable: 15 rushes for 160 of his 265 all-purpose yards for the game and three touchdowns, two of which came on runs of 36 and 45 yards. The Irish had no answer. Nobody did. And defenses having to account for Bush at all times enabled Leinart to go from a great collegiate quarterback to an extraordinary one.
Without Reggie Bush, this is not even an argument. In fact, given the breadth and depth of talent Pete Carroll has assembled at USC that’s made almost every Trojan starting quarterback a first-round draft pick, I don’t think I even need Reggie Bush to make the claim. But:
More significantly: Leinart won 2 BCS bowls, and played in another, barely losing one of the greatest games ever played.
So did Reggie Bush. Every reason you have for Leinart winning this award goes the same for Bush. In fact, I would argue that this argument shouldn’t be between Tebow and Leinart at all, but rather between Tebow and Bush — but TSN probably didn’t even consider Bush for the award given the natural favoritism towards quarterbacks and Bush’s, um, questionable ethics during his time in Troy.
So, yeah, The Sporting News botched this one. Badly.
*this is another pet peeve of mine: until very recently, decades, centuries and millennia were counted ordinally and not cardinally, i.e. NOT when the “odometer rolled over.” I realize I’m fighting a losing battle on this one, and it’s a little tangential to this argument, and I don’t know why I’m trying to out-geek you, so I’ll stop now.
I appreciate your magnanimity, but the fact remains that one of USC’s championships is tainted, celebrated as it is by two and only two groups of people: the Associated Press and USC fans. I agree that the whole damn system is stupidly arranged, but it’s the only one we’ve got, and on that ledger the score is inarguable: Florida 2, USC 1½.
You lose the argument right here. The AP Championship is 100% recognized as a legitimate award. It is recognized by the NCAA. It is recognized by LSU. It is recognized by FLORIDA who claim it for their two wins. Whether you like the system or not it is what it is and split championships are allowed.
You also lose out by trying to defend the SEC (and Florida in particulars) abysmal scehdule, especially as Brendan pointed out that Tebow has played in one, count that ONE non-conference away game in his entire career.
I will agree that TSN should have waited till after this season to crown anybody. I won’t agree that it’s a “slam dunk” if Tebow wins either a title or a second Heisman. If he wins both a title and a second Heisman, then yes, especially if it’s an undefeated title. Otherwise his case is strengthened, but it’s still a debate. However, yeah, the jury is still out, so they should have waited.
But, if we’re going to judge by what they’ve done to date… you’re not giving Leinart enough credit. Most significantly, you didn’t address my argument about the teams’ respective schedules, and their respective win-loss records, Leinart leading USC to a 34-game winning streak and two undefeated regular seasons, etc. When push comes to (ahem) shove, the most important numbers in the discussion, it seems to me, are 37-2 and 38-6 — the respective records of the teams led by Leinart and Tebow (if you count the latter’s freshman year). I’m sorry, but that 9-4 season is a huge blot on Tebow’s case for an honor like this, particularly when he’s up against someone who, again, lost half that many games in his entire career.
I confess that I forgot how mediocre Cal was in 2003, so I concede that point (and retract my comment that Leinart never lost to somebody as mediocre as ’07 Michigan). I also concede that Brady Quinn was the better quarterback than Matt Leinart on October 15, 2005. Virtually USC’s whole team played significantly below its potential that day. And yet, the Trojans still won, with Matt Leinart leading them on a heroic, historic drive amid the screaming masses awakening the echoes and shaking down the thunder, with a full moon rising over the stadium and the four horsemen riding and everything else. Even in one of his worst performances, Matt Leinart still bested Brady Quinn, who gave one of his best.
Re: the “half-championship,” you say it is “celebrated…by two and only two groups of people: the Associated Press and USC fans.” You forgot about the entire national sports media. And, in any case, as I’ve said countless times before, each and every fan who decries that championship as illegitimate is being a total hypocrite, because any fan of any team in USC’s situation would most certainly react exactly the way USC’s fans justifably have, and celebrate the title as totally, 100% legitimate. Because it is. The Associated Press NEVER agreed to be bound by the BCS’s rules, and NEVER promised to crown the same champion. The autonomy of the AP in choosing its champion has ALWAYS been part of “the system.” There have been numerous times since the BCS came into existence, both before and after 2003-04, when the specter of a split championship was raised. It is a completely legitimate thing, not just a retroactive invention of Trojan fans. And, again, there is no such thing as a half-championship. Neither USC nor LSU have won “1 1/2” championships this decade. They’ve both won two. That’s how college football has always worked. Sometimes there are split championships. When that happens, each team is a whole, not a half, champion. That’s retarded, but as you say, “the whole damn system is stupidly arranged, but it’s the only one we’ve got, and on that ledger the score is inarguable:” USC won the national championship in 2003-04. So did LSU. Period. Ergo, Matt Leinart won 2 national championships at USC. Again: inarguable.
P.S. Last but not least, re: Reggie Bush, if you want to say that Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush are tied for Player of the Decade, with Tim Tebow third, I will magnanimously agree to concede that point. 😛
David K.: You lose the argument right here. The AP Championship is 100% recognized as a legitimate award. It is recognized by the NCAA. It is recognized by LSU. It is recognized by FLORIDA who claim it for their two wins. Whether you like the system or not it is what it is and split championships are allowed.
Florida may claim the AP National Championship, but more importantly, they claim the two crystalline football trophies that, since the creation of the BCS, have signified the national champion. When the BCS was formed, that’s how the major conferences — of which USC is a member — decided the champion should be crowned, until of course USC didn’t win it and suddenly claimed that since a bunch of journalists said they’re the best, that their championship is every bit as legitimate as the crystal football, which would be laughable if you didn’t take it so seriously. It’s the GED of national championships.
Again, I heartily agree that the system is crooked and broken. The system before it was crooked and broken, too, and you can ask any Notre Dame fan: in 1989 the best two schools in the nation were Miami and Notre Dame. Miami beat Notre Dame. 1989 National Champion: Miami. In 1993, the best two schools in the nation were Florida State and Notre Dame. Notre Dame beat Florida State. 1993 National Champion: Florida State.
I’d love to claim 1993 as a national championship year because the system then was screwed up. But I can’t because (pre-BCS) the standard was “consensus national champion,” and a consensus of the panels the NCAA have (tacitly, never officially) given authorization to declare champions decided we weren’t. If we’re going to retroactively say that any team that got the approval of one of said authoritative panels can claim a national championship, then as a representative of Notre Dame, I hereby claim the 1964 national championship. The National Football Foundation said we were champions that season. It’s just as legitimate, right?
David K.: You also lose out by trying to defend the SEC (and Florida in particulars) abysmal scehdule
I did no such thing (stay tuned, though: I will in a minute). I remarked upon one opponent that Brendan alleged was equivalent to the mediocre bunch of no-names that USC lost to in 2003 (and, no offense, almost every year since). It wasn’t true.
Brendan: Most significantly, you didn’t address my argument about the teams’ respective schedules, and their respective win-loss records
I did not, and you’d prefer I didn’t. During the Leinart/Bush Era at USC, the Trojans’ opponents went a total of 259-209, fifty games over .500. Not bad. But during the last three seasons, Florida’s opponents went 329-201, a whopping 128 games better than breakeven. I know, I know, there’s a couple I-AA teams and Sun Belt patsies in there, but that’s more than canceled out by Florida playing in a more difficult conference. I know we both mock all the jocksniffers who fellate the SEC (“It’s a WAR!”, I think, is second only to “PANIC!!” in terms of snarky post endings on this site), but over the periods in question, USC played 11 games against teams nationally ranked at the time they played them — Florida played 16. (USC was 10-1 in those games; Florida was 13-3.)
Leinart leading USC to a 34-game winning streak
Streaks are bunk. Statistical anomalies. Winning 34 games bookended by two losses is no more or less inherently special than winning 17, losing one, then winning 17 more and losing another.
Don’t get me wrong; they’re eye-catching — as any baseball fan will tell you, in 1941 Joe DiMaggio had a base hit in 56 straight games. An amazing feat. But over the 162-game season, Ted Williams was a better hitter. A much better hitter. Forty-nine batting average points better (.406 to DiMaggio’s .357). Guess which one won the MVP that year. Hint: the same one who nailed Marilyn Monroe.
Brendan: And, in any case, as I’ve said countless times before, each and every fan who decries that championship as illegitimate is being a total hypocrite, because any fan of any team in USC’s situation would most certainly react exactly the way USC’s fans justifably have, and celebrate the title as totally, 100% legitimate.
In other words, “every other school’s fans would be homer assholes about it, so I get to be a homer asshole, too.” I don’t find that compelling. In fact, I could turn that very statement around and say that odds are, you wouldn’t find that a persuasive argument coming from a fan of, let’s say, UCLA. Or Michigan. Or even some team you’re probably ambivalent towards, like Alabama.
(Though honestly, a BYU, Boise State or Utah could get away with that claim, because their conferences did not agree to be bound by the BCS rules as the Pac-10 did.)
Brendan: And, again, there is no such thing as a half-championship. Neither USC nor LSU have won “1 1/2″ championships this decade.
Agreed. Allow me to amend my statement that got us started down this road, then: Tim Tebow has two outright undisputed national championships — Matt Leinart has one. There.
I didn’t say USC has 1½ championships to detract from them; I did it to give them credit. Honestly, I’m on board with the guys who put the “onepeat” billboard on Figueroa right outside the Coliseum. But granting USC the extra half is my small way of admitting that they got screwed by an irredeemably flawed system.
But crying “we wuz robbed” doesn’t change things. For example, when I read your purple prose about Leinart’s heroics during USC’s final possession against Notre Dame in 2005, my fists balled up in Irish rage because goddammit, I want you to admit that ND really and truly won, and SC’s “victory” was a hollow fluke, and *grumble grumble shake fist grumble grumble*. Had you been sitting next to me, this is likely the conversation that would have taken place:
YOU: “. . . Even in one of his worst performances, Matt Leinart still bested Brady Quinn, who gave one of his best.”
ME: WTF! Bush Push! Shoulda been a penalty! OMG!
YOU: Yeah, but we still won.
ME: Leinart fumbled! Clock was at zero!
YOU: 34-31.
ME: Quinn was better!
YOU: Scoreboard, beeyotch!
ME: *sigh* Yeah. [Okay, maybe you wouldn’t say “beeyotch.”]
Are you honestly going to tell me that had the AP, in 2004, voted Auburn their national champions (they were undefeated in the five-way clusterbomb that was that season), that you would gladly shake hands with a Tigers fan and congratulate him on his deserved title? Or would you do it, begrudgingly, then when you’re in the company of other guys wearing cardinal and gold, say that their quote-unquote “championship” is a total crock of horseshit?
(To be less of a prick, your larger point is well-taken. If the Olympic 100-meter dash ends in a perfect tie, they don’t saw the gold medal down the middle. I don’t agree that USC’s championship is equal, but assuming I did, then yes you did win two and not one and a half.)
Brendan: if you want to say that Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush are tied for Player of the Decade, with Tim Tebow third, I will magnanimously agree to concede that point.
I would actually go along with that. The Leinart/Bush combo was everything you said it was: a virtually unstoppable juggernaut that, over three years, lost two games by a grand total of six points. Meaning basically that they were one touchdown’s worth away from winning two outright undisputed national championships and finishing no worse than runner-up in a third.
But I’d still wait for the curtain to come down on Tim Tebow’s career. Before he’s done he may have the same amount of Heismans as, and one more championship than, Leinart and Bush combined.
No time to respond in full, and in any case we obviously aren’t going to convince each other on the championship thing. I’d just be repeating myself by pointing out that AP’s independence has always remained part of “the system,” both before and after the 2003-04 system. Blah blah blah. However, I do want to address this point:
Are you honestly going to tell me that had the AP, in 2004, voted Auburn their national champions (they were undefeated in the five-way clusterbomb that was that season), that you would gladly shake hands with a Tigers fan and congratulate him on his deserved title? Or would you do it, begrudgingly, then when you’re in the company of other guys wearing cardinal and gold, say that their quote-unquote “championship” is a total crock of horseshit?
I would refer you to my blog post on December 4, 2004. Excerpt:
And, two days later:
And finally, almost a year later, in November 2005:
So I did you one better: I’m on record as stating that I’m willing to accept a claim of a national championship by Auburn in 2004, even in the absence of an Associated Press #1 ranking. (Likewise Utah ’04 and Boise State ’06 and Utah ’08.) I realize that’s not a mainstream position, and I wouldn’t begrudge folks for not going as far as I do there. But certainly, if Auburn had been given the AP’s national championship trophy, signifying the oldest national championship in college football, I wouldn’t begrudge them that one iota. I would congratulate the Tigers whole-heartedly, with no backroom sniping among my fellow Trojan fans, and in fact I would criticize any USC fans who took issue with it.
… Though I suppose, given the experience of 2003-04, USC fans would probably be one of the few groups that would feel constrained to NOT take issue — heh. But for me, this is a matter of principle, not mere convenience. I regard this notion that “everyone agreed to the BCS” as naught but post-hoc rationalization by those wishing to deny the Trojans credit for their rightfully earned championship. To the extent that “everyone agreed” (a questionable notion to begin with — Did Pete Carroll get a vote? Did Matt Leinart? Did Joe Blow USC Fan?), what they “agreed to” was a system that includes both the BCS and the contractually-obligated coaches, AND the non-contractually-obligated AP. That’s the system we have. It’s the system we’ve had since the inception of the BCS. It wasn’t invented by USC fans. That’s how it’s always been.
The AP national championship is part of the current (broken) system. Anyone who wins it is a 100% legitimate national champion under that system.
I guess I ended up repeating myself after all. Oh well. 🙂
P.S. You DO realize that, whatever one thinks of the “Bush Push,” the only reason the “clock was at zero” on the preceding play was because of a timekeeping error, right? I mean, it’s not even debatable that the ball was fumbled out of bounds long before the clock hit 0:00, and the clock should have stopped. I realize some people think there should have some sort of bullshit penalty there or something, but that still doesn’t equate to “Notre Dame won because the clock was at zero.” The only significance of the clock having been at zero is that Notre Dame briefly thought it had won. But that belief was simply mistaken.
Florida may claim the AP National Championship, but more importantly, they claim the two crystalline football trophies that, since the creation of the BCS, have signified the national champion. When the BCS was formed, that’s how the major conferences — of which USC is a member — decided the champion should be crowned, until of course USC didn’t win it and suddenly claimed that since a bunch of journalists said they’re the best, that their championship is every bit as legitimate as the crystal football, which would be laughable if you didn’t take it so seriously. It’s the GED of national championships.
So Florida turned down the AP trophy in 2008 and 2006? I must have missed that part.
The AP, which is one of the oldest recognized national championship selectors never agreed to be bound by the BCS outcome and none of the organization agreed to stop recognizing their championship. Sorry but there is no proof anywhere that the BCS was agreed to as the EXCLUSIVE determining organization. They hoped it would be that way maybe, but it never materialized. The continued acceptance and celebration of winning the AP trophy by teams in non-contested years is proof that everyone still recognizes it.
I don’t really have a dog in this fight (can you still say that in the Michael Vick era?), but it seems like Brendan in #1 downplays the enormous benefit Leinart experiences from having Bush in his backfield. So we’re all on the same page, Bush was arguably the greatest open-field, ankle-breaking runner in NCAA history.
What does this mean for Leinart? What makes a quarterback great? Is it being able to read a defense, and then understand what the defense means for your called play, audible if necessary, then execute the play, make good decisions and throw your passes accurately? Something like that.
This task is inevitably easier in college than the NFL since very few college teams have all NFL-worthy players in their defensive secondary. Surveying the defense, Leinart would usually see a couple of players in each Pac-10 secondary that wouldn’t even be standouts in the WAC – so they “stand out” on the field, in the sense that Leinart wants to attack them.
As the greatest ankle-breaker ever, Bush forces the D-Coordinator to devote one reasonably talented backer to shadow Bush, so that the D has at least a fighting chance of stopping Bush before he gets to the open field. Once he’s in the clear he’s deadly. Leinart knows this too, and he has a pretty good idea who that defender would be, if not at the outset of the game than certainly as play progresses.
So college play is easier than the NFL by virtue of the fact that there’s a couple of duds in the defensive secondary (not in the NFL unless you’re playing the Lions). The threat of Bush forces the defense’s hand, makes them overplay the part of the field Bush is on (not that they ever stop him), which makes Leinart’s task even easier still.
Not that the following is necessarily a germane comparison, but neither Leinart nor Tebow will achieve much in the NFL. Tebow won’t be a Top Ten draft pick, though. Strikes me that among the other things dogging Leinart in the pros, the lack of help a guy like Bush provides is one big factor among many.
I’m not sure who I’d endorse for player of the decade – but if Florida wins an undefeated championship this year, I wouldn’t hesitate to choose the virgin.
When trying to assess something hopelessly subjective like “Player of the ___”, one always struggles with how to compare someone like a running back and a linebacker. Complicating matters, how does one compare a player in a great system like USC’s with one who plays for a guy like Weis? The nerds in the Moneyball era have come up with the concept VORP, or Value Over Replacement Player, to attempt to compare not-easily-compared players.
The interesting thing about Brendan’s defense of Leinart in #1, he basically infers from the greatness of USC that their quarterback must have been great too. The only Leinart-specific, VORP-ish criteria that Brendan cites is Leinart’s Heisman – though curiously suggests that without Bush, Leinart would have won another Heisman, meaning, I guess, that Leinart might have been even better at USC without Bush there.
The outstanding success of USC during the Leinart years suggests that there was a very important player on that team with a very high VORP – how else could they be that good? That USC team had a critical player with a sky-high VORP.
Interesting sideline about Leinart – define VORP narrowly, as in Value Over (Specific) Replacement Player, and Leinart’s VORP for two of his three years – including arguably his Heisman year, might have been negative.
Surely value over specific replacement player is too restrictive. Nevertheless, if we are judging by VORP, the player of the decade – by a mile – is Reggie Bush. Bush is even in the conversation for player of the century, along with maybe Jim Brown at Syracuse or Doug Flutie at BC. Tebow is actually pretty high up there using a VORP criteria as well.
Leinart?
Might not even make the first page.
P.S. You DO realize that, whatever one thinks of the “Bush Push,” the only reason the “clock was at zero” on the preceding play was because of a timekeeping error, right?
Of course. It was an example of a grasping-at-straws argument I used to compare it to USC’s claiming of a championship, though admittedly your case is far stronger.
In truth, my disrespect for such a concept as “the AP national champions” is because of one man: Eric Hansen. Eric Hansen is the Notre Dame beat reporter for the South Bend Tribune and also has a ND blog on ESPNChicago.com. He’s a good guy, well-versed and well-mannered, not like the douchebags on the shouty-shout sports talk shows. Last year he had an AP vote. Basically, the AP championship is determined by 65 Eric Hansens, guys who probably spend most of their Saturdays covering their assigned beats (and not the rest of the college football universe) before having to submit a new poll on Sunday morning.
So, yeah, I don’t see it as quite as legitimate as a system that used those guys PLUS a poll of college football coaches PLUS a bunch of Ph.D.s who wrote computer programs without bias to team or conference PLUS a mutually agreed-upon system ranking strength of schedule and quality wins to produce two teams where the winner gets the national championship. (I’m not saying this system is good, only better than the previous.)
USC, on the other hand, got to basically stay home, thump an overmatched Michigan team, and hang a banner. Sounds like a sweet deal. And all their complaining got the BCS to chuck the strength of schedule and quality win components out of the formula — which still angers me to this day, to the point where I deliberately included it in mine.
One point re: schedule strength. The change to the BCS formula didn’t eliminate “strength of schedule” as a major factor in the rankings. It merely eliminated it as an separate, explicit factor. Schedule strength is still a crucial factor in all the computer rankings (unlike margin of victory, which is forbidden as a computer ranking component). It was eliminated from the BCS formula because it was seen as duplicative of those computer rankings, and of overly complicating the formula. Likewise with “quality wins” — the theory was, the computer polls already take those into account (as do the polls, for that matter).