OSUBasketballJunkie
Never Forget 31-0
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In the bag?
OSU's Smith may have already locked up the Heisman
I had lunch in Los Angleles earlier this week with none other than the Heisman Pundit, the brain behind the Heismandments and the man who handicaps the race each year for college football's "most outstanding" player on his indispensable HeismanPundit.com.
The Pundit prefers to remain nameless, although I can tell you that he used to work at Southern California, and believes the Trojans offensive doldrums are the manifestation of a kind of time-delayed hangover resulting from the departure of Norm Chow.
We met at the Starbucks just off the USC campus. HP had an Odwalla orange juice and a chicken sandwich. I went with my usual tall cappuccino, semi-dry. It wasn't like getting an audience with the Dalai Lama, but it was enlightening.
The Pundit awarded this year's September Heisman -- given to the best player through the first month of the season -- to Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith. That sounds swell, until he fills me in on the background of the award. Previous winners of the September Heisman have been USC's Matt Leinart (last season), Purdue's Kyle Orton ('04), Michigan's Chris Perry ('03) and Iowa State's Seneca Wallace ('02). No winner of the September Heisman Interim Trophy -- that's my more formal name for it; the acronym hints at its worth -- has ever gone on to win the real door jamb.
Smith is looking like the exception. Noting that the savvy senior has passed for 1,495 yards, 17 touchdowns and just two interceptions, and has a passing efficiency rating of 172.8, the Pundit is prepared to hand him the award today: "Smith is the quarterback on the No. 1 team and as long as the Buckeyes remain undefeated, he will be your next Heisman winner.
What has to happen for someone else -- say, Notre Dame's Brady Quinn -- to have a chance? First of all, says HP, Smith needs to stink up the joint in a bad loss to Michigan on Nov. 18. It isn't enough that Quinn keep putting up big numbers in Fighting Irish victories. The Man from Dublin (Ohio) needs help: "Notre Dame needs for USC to keep winning in order to set up a hugely-hyped matchup on Nov. 25, [in which] Quinn must produce a masterful performance in a Notre Dame win over USC," says HP.
What sublime reversal that would be for Domer Nation: a Notre Dame player using the Trojans as a springboard for his Heisman aspirations, rather than the other way around.
What I don't like about the handicapping for this trophy is the hurry in which the Pundit and his ilk seem to be to kick certain candidates off Heisman Island (coinage: SI.com's Gene Menez); the urgency they feel to declare candidacies DOA.
These are the people telling me I'm supposed to forget about Garrett Wolfe, now, just because the Northern Illinois Comet was held to 25 yards on 18 carries by Western Michigan. So what if he had a bad game. The guy still leads the nation with 195 rushing yards per game. West Virginia's Steve Slaton, in second place, is 40 yards back.
"OK, OK," said the Pundit, relenting slightly. "Northern Illinois has Temple this weekend. If Wolfe goes for 400 against the Owls, he's back in the mix."
Piece of cake, right, Garrett? Don't thank me for salvaging your Heisman hopes, kid. Just get a good night's sleep on Friday.
What about Calvin Johnson? I'd just returned from Atlanta, where I'd spent time with Johnson, Georgia Tech's extraterrestrial wide receiver. Frankly, I can't recall when I've seen a playmaker like this guy, who caught 21 passes for 413 yards and five touchdowns in his last three games.
At 6-foot-4, 235 pounds, Johnson is tight-end sized. But he's run the 40 in 4.38, and has a 45-inch vertical. (Although, as I point out in my story on him this week, his teammates suspect he can go higher: the measuring contraption they have at Tech only goes up to 45. Left tackle Andrew Gardner thinks Calvin's true vertical is closer to 47.)
Think that will turn some heads at the NFL combine? I talked to one NFL scout whose director had discussed the possibility of Johnson being the No. 1 pick in this spring's draft. Only twice in the history of the draft has a wideout been selected first (Keyshawn Johnson in 1996; Irving Fryar in '84). Traditionally, teams use the primo pick on a quarterback, or a guy who can dramatically improve the defense, right away. A wide receiver is considered a "luxury" pick, said the scout. The thinking among most general managers is that you can win Super Bowls with wideouts taken in lower rounds -- or, at the least, from lower in the first round. He pointed to the cautionary example of the Detroit Lions, who've used first-round picks to select wideouts in every draft from 2003-05, "and they're not winning."
Two guys who could reasonably be selected before Johnson: Adrian Peterson and Quinn. The day after I spoke to that scout, Peterson, Oklahoma's matchless running back, broke his clavicle against Iowa State. For the third straight season, A.D. has suffered a significant injury. While there's simply no question that so vast a talent will have an immediate impact in the NFL, it's possible that his durability is now enough of a question mark to knock him out of the top spot. Johnson moves up.
Does he move up in Heisman contention?
I say yes, but am contradicted by the Pundit, who comes at me with the first of his ten Heismandments: "The winner of the Heisman must be a quarterback, a running back or a multi-threat athlete."
"The sad fact," he elaborates on his website, "is that the Heisman DOES discriminate. The best player in the country may well be a tight end. But the award is handed out by a select group of voters and they have without fail awarded the trophy to a quarterback, a running back or a multi-threat athlete."
So you're saying Johnson can't win because he doesn't return kicks? I ask HP. He nods sadly, with finality.
My take: as rock crushes scissors, Johnson's outrageous abilities negate this particular Heismandment. See if you don't agree. Go to RamblinWreck.com, click on the picture of No. 21 in the upper right hand corner. Check out the video montage of circus catches by Johnson, whose leaping, diving, one-handed snags fill us with wonderment, and, after awhile, beg the question: In the three years Johnson and Reggie Ball have played together, has Ballever hit the guy in stride? Does he have any routine catches.
"Of course he does," Yellow Jackets head coach Chan Gailey told me when I posed the question. "They don't put those catches with the highlights."
Chan's the head man, so I'm taking his word for it.
Quick take on last Saturday's head stomping, helmet-swinging, five-minute free-for-all between FIU and Miami in the Orange Bowl (or, as my old friend Lamar Thomas refers to it, "the OB" -- as in "You don't come into the OB playing that stuff ... talking noise like that. You'll get your butt kicked. I was about to go down the elevator and get into that thing.''
So much for that color commentary gig. (Thomas was fired by Comcast Sports Southeast the following Monday.)
After handing down too-lenient punishments the first time around, both schools got it right. Two Florida International players have been kicked off the team; 16 of their teammates will serve indefinite suspensions. Anthony Reddick, the Miami safety who waded into the fray swinging his helmet as if it were a Scottish mace and he was re-enacting the climactic battle scene from Braveheart, saw his one-game suspension beefed up to "indefinite." A dozen of his 'Cane brethren will miss Saturday's game at Duke, and, on top of that, be required to perform community service.
I like the point made by my colleague, Stewart Mandel, who noted that nearly as stunning as the melee has been the response to it: "prominent media figures calling for Miami to receive the death penalty."
Make no mistake, this fight was manna for columnists and bloviators on sports talk radio and TV. Cancel the season! Some demanded. Cancel the program! Suggested others.
Take a few deep, cleansing breaths, guys. Take a Xanax. What we saw was really, really bad. But if you're going to bring down the death penalty on a program, maybe it would be best to think it through. Listen to thoughtful sportswriter (and Miami alumna) Michelle Kaufman: "Did these same journalists call for the dismantling of the South Carolina and Clemson programs when they had their ugly brawl in 2004? Have they called for the head of Florida State's Bobby Bowden, who in the past five years has had players arrested for felony grand theft, drunk driving and soliciting sex from an undercover police officer?
Did they care that former University of Cincinnati basketball coach Bob Huggins went years with a zero percent graduation rate?"
Kaufman also wonders: Where is the outrage over the Hullaballoo in Hanover? Hours before Hurricanes captain Brandon Meriweather could be seen stomping various supine Golden Panthers, Dartmouth and Holy Cross mixed it up on Memorial Field. The Big Green took exception to the Crusaders, who desecrated the midfield D after winning in overtime, 24-21.
By all accounts, this I-AA fracas had less staying power than the melee in Miami, but it was still plenty ugly, with players "thrown to the ground and kicked," according to the AP.
Whether an athlete joins a brawl, or tries to restrain his teammates from doing so, says much about him. How we respond to such spectacles says much about us. Why should a free-for-all comprised of predominantly African American males disturb us so much more deeply than an altercation between a similar number of white boys from the 'burbs?
What's up with our different responses?
Reaction No. 1: "They should arrest those kids and abolish the program. That's a disgrace."
Reaction No. 2: "Don't worry honey -- they're wearing so much padding they can't hurt each other. Probably just blowing off steam before midterms."
I don't know the answer. Like Reggie Ball, I'm just throwin' it out there.
In the bag?
OSU's Smith may have already locked up the Heisman
I had lunch in Los Angleles earlier this week with none other than the Heisman Pundit, the brain behind the Heismandments and the man who handicaps the race each year for college football's "most outstanding" player on his indispensable HeismanPundit.com.
The Pundit prefers to remain nameless, although I can tell you that he used to work at Southern California, and believes the Trojans offensive doldrums are the manifestation of a kind of time-delayed hangover resulting from the departure of Norm Chow.
We met at the Starbucks just off the USC campus. HP had an Odwalla orange juice and a chicken sandwich. I went with my usual tall cappuccino, semi-dry. It wasn't like getting an audience with the Dalai Lama, but it was enlightening.
The Pundit awarded this year's September Heisman -- given to the best player through the first month of the season -- to Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith. That sounds swell, until he fills me in on the background of the award. Previous winners of the September Heisman have been USC's Matt Leinart (last season), Purdue's Kyle Orton ('04), Michigan's Chris Perry ('03) and Iowa State's Seneca Wallace ('02). No winner of the September Heisman Interim Trophy -- that's my more formal name for it; the acronym hints at its worth -- has ever gone on to win the real door jamb.
Smith is looking like the exception. Noting that the savvy senior has passed for 1,495 yards, 17 touchdowns and just two interceptions, and has a passing efficiency rating of 172.8, the Pundit is prepared to hand him the award today: "Smith is the quarterback on the No. 1 team and as long as the Buckeyes remain undefeated, he will be your next Heisman winner.
What has to happen for someone else -- say, Notre Dame's Brady Quinn -- to have a chance? First of all, says HP, Smith needs to stink up the joint in a bad loss to Michigan on Nov. 18. It isn't enough that Quinn keep putting up big numbers in Fighting Irish victories. The Man from Dublin (Ohio) needs help: "Notre Dame needs for USC to keep winning in order to set up a hugely-hyped matchup on Nov. 25, [in which] Quinn must produce a masterful performance in a Notre Dame win over USC," says HP.
What sublime reversal that would be for Domer Nation: a Notre Dame player using the Trojans as a springboard for his Heisman aspirations, rather than the other way around.
What I don't like about the handicapping for this trophy is the hurry in which the Pundit and his ilk seem to be to kick certain candidates off Heisman Island (coinage: SI.com's Gene Menez); the urgency they feel to declare candidacies DOA.
These are the people telling me I'm supposed to forget about Garrett Wolfe, now, just because the Northern Illinois Comet was held to 25 yards on 18 carries by Western Michigan. So what if he had a bad game. The guy still leads the nation with 195 rushing yards per game. West Virginia's Steve Slaton, in second place, is 40 yards back.
"OK, OK," said the Pundit, relenting slightly. "Northern Illinois has Temple this weekend. If Wolfe goes for 400 against the Owls, he's back in the mix."
Piece of cake, right, Garrett? Don't thank me for salvaging your Heisman hopes, kid. Just get a good night's sleep on Friday.
What about Calvin Johnson? I'd just returned from Atlanta, where I'd spent time with Johnson, Georgia Tech's extraterrestrial wide receiver. Frankly, I can't recall when I've seen a playmaker like this guy, who caught 21 passes for 413 yards and five touchdowns in his last three games.
At 6-foot-4, 235 pounds, Johnson is tight-end sized. But he's run the 40 in 4.38, and has a 45-inch vertical. (Although, as I point out in my story on him this week, his teammates suspect he can go higher: the measuring contraption they have at Tech only goes up to 45. Left tackle Andrew Gardner thinks Calvin's true vertical is closer to 47.)
Think that will turn some heads at the NFL combine? I talked to one NFL scout whose director had discussed the possibility of Johnson being the No. 1 pick in this spring's draft. Only twice in the history of the draft has a wideout been selected first (Keyshawn Johnson in 1996; Irving Fryar in '84). Traditionally, teams use the primo pick on a quarterback, or a guy who can dramatically improve the defense, right away. A wide receiver is considered a "luxury" pick, said the scout. The thinking among most general managers is that you can win Super Bowls with wideouts taken in lower rounds -- or, at the least, from lower in the first round. He pointed to the cautionary example of the Detroit Lions, who've used first-round picks to select wideouts in every draft from 2003-05, "and they're not winning."
Two guys who could reasonably be selected before Johnson: Adrian Peterson and Quinn. The day after I spoke to that scout, Peterson, Oklahoma's matchless running back, broke his clavicle against Iowa State. For the third straight season, A.D. has suffered a significant injury. While there's simply no question that so vast a talent will have an immediate impact in the NFL, it's possible that his durability is now enough of a question mark to knock him out of the top spot. Johnson moves up.
Does he move up in Heisman contention?
I say yes, but am contradicted by the Pundit, who comes at me with the first of his ten Heismandments: "The winner of the Heisman must be a quarterback, a running back or a multi-threat athlete."
"The sad fact," he elaborates on his website, "is that the Heisman DOES discriminate. The best player in the country may well be a tight end. But the award is handed out by a select group of voters and they have without fail awarded the trophy to a quarterback, a running back or a multi-threat athlete."
So you're saying Johnson can't win because he doesn't return kicks? I ask HP. He nods sadly, with finality.
My take: as rock crushes scissors, Johnson's outrageous abilities negate this particular Heismandment. See if you don't agree. Go to RamblinWreck.com, click on the picture of No. 21 in the upper right hand corner. Check out the video montage of circus catches by Johnson, whose leaping, diving, one-handed snags fill us with wonderment, and, after awhile, beg the question: In the three years Johnson and Reggie Ball have played together, has Ballever hit the guy in stride? Does he have any routine catches.
"Of course he does," Yellow Jackets head coach Chan Gailey told me when I posed the question. "They don't put those catches with the highlights."
Chan's the head man, so I'm taking his word for it.
Quick take on last Saturday's head stomping, helmet-swinging, five-minute free-for-all between FIU and Miami in the Orange Bowl (or, as my old friend Lamar Thomas refers to it, "the OB" -- as in "You don't come into the OB playing that stuff ... talking noise like that. You'll get your butt kicked. I was about to go down the elevator and get into that thing.''
So much for that color commentary gig. (Thomas was fired by Comcast Sports Southeast the following Monday.)
After handing down too-lenient punishments the first time around, both schools got it right. Two Florida International players have been kicked off the team; 16 of their teammates will serve indefinite suspensions. Anthony Reddick, the Miami safety who waded into the fray swinging his helmet as if it were a Scottish mace and he was re-enacting the climactic battle scene from Braveheart, saw his one-game suspension beefed up to "indefinite." A dozen of his 'Cane brethren will miss Saturday's game at Duke, and, on top of that, be required to perform community service.
I like the point made by my colleague, Stewart Mandel, who noted that nearly as stunning as the melee has been the response to it: "prominent media figures calling for Miami to receive the death penalty."
Make no mistake, this fight was manna for columnists and bloviators on sports talk radio and TV. Cancel the season! Some demanded. Cancel the program! Suggested others.
Take a few deep, cleansing breaths, guys. Take a Xanax. What we saw was really, really bad. But if you're going to bring down the death penalty on a program, maybe it would be best to think it through. Listen to thoughtful sportswriter (and Miami alumna) Michelle Kaufman: "Did these same journalists call for the dismantling of the South Carolina and Clemson programs when they had their ugly brawl in 2004? Have they called for the head of Florida State's Bobby Bowden, who in the past five years has had players arrested for felony grand theft, drunk driving and soliciting sex from an undercover police officer?
Did they care that former University of Cincinnati basketball coach Bob Huggins went years with a zero percent graduation rate?"
Kaufman also wonders: Where is the outrage over the Hullaballoo in Hanover? Hours before Hurricanes captain Brandon Meriweather could be seen stomping various supine Golden Panthers, Dartmouth and Holy Cross mixed it up on Memorial Field. The Big Green took exception to the Crusaders, who desecrated the midfield D after winning in overtime, 24-21.
By all accounts, this I-AA fracas had less staying power than the melee in Miami, but it was still plenty ugly, with players "thrown to the ground and kicked," according to the AP.
Whether an athlete joins a brawl, or tries to restrain his teammates from doing so, says much about him. How we respond to such spectacles says much about us. Why should a free-for-all comprised of predominantly African American males disturb us so much more deeply than an altercation between a similar number of white boys from the 'burbs?
What's up with our different responses?
Reaction No. 1: "They should arrest those kids and abolish the program. That's a disgrace."
Reaction No. 2: "Don't worry honey -- they're wearing so much padding they can't hurt each other. Probably just blowing off steam before midterms."
I don't know the answer. Like Reggie Ball, I'm just throwin' it out there.
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