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 | | Posted on: 11/6/2008 |
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| Written by Brian Lutz |
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Posted on 10/10/2008 6:07:32 AM |
I have sitting beside me a Street & Smith’s College Football Preview magazine. I like to get one of these every year, along with the NFL version, to get me properly pumped for the upcoming football season. I wanted to write my own version of a college football preview for FIO, so I figured this was a good research tool to use. There’s just one little wrinkle… this magazine is from 2001.*
*OK, so what happened was, I wrote those words 2 months ago. I was ready and willing to do my bizarro college football preview, using the old magazine, but certain events interfered (such as, I didn’t have the internet hooked up yet). I know it’s already seven weeks into the college football season, but this “preview” is actually coming seven years too late, if you know what I mean.
Gracing the cover of this publication is a young, almost-svelte running back from Michigan State. The surreal headline reads: “Lansing Locmotive… Is T.J. Duckett on track for a Heisman?” To answer that one – probably not, but he is on track for a disappointing professional career that will include four teams in eight years! That’s what I love about these old preview magazines – they easily reintroduce us to long-forgotten players whose careers peaked when they were playing on Saturdays instead of Sundays. I figured there were tons of players inside these pages that many of us can’t remember – and others we can’t forget – so I decided to dive right in, without even testing how cold the water is. And what a better place to start then with the All-American Team?
MOST DISAPPOINTING ALL-AMERICAN: Eric Crouch, QB, Nebraska (Senior)
Crouch was the eventual Heisman Trophy winner back in ’01 (sorry, T.J.), but his pro career hit a bit of a snag when he decided to “retire” after a grueling three-week tenure as a wide receiver for the Rams. Crouch was one of the most exciting college players back in the day, and he holds a soft spot in my heart as possibly the most deadly video game quarterback in the short history of the often-overlooked “PlayStation 1.” Crouch tried to make it as a QB later on with the Green Bay Packers (a tough racket for anyone) and spent some time in NFL Europe before hooking on with the All-American Football League. If you’ve never heard of this, it’s because the league shut down before it even started. What a truly fitting allegory for Crouch’s professional career.
DEEPEST POSITION ON THE ALL-AMERICAN TEAM: Defensive Back
Lito Sheppard and Ed Reed, a pair of future Pro Bowlers, lead the first team, joined by Quinten Jammer and Andre Lott (NOTE: he’s not Ronnie’s son). Mike Doss anchors the second team, along with Mississippi State’s Pig Prather, who is right up there with God Shammgod and Reuben Boumtje Boumtje as one of the great college athlete names of all-time.
SHOULD HAVE BEEN FIRST-TEAMERS: Julius Peppers / Bryant McKinnie
Peppers was just a junior in ’01 and still playing basketball, so I could see how he was left off of the first team. But McKinnie was a senior, and widely regarded as the best lineman in the country that year, if I remember correctly. What I do remember correctly is seeing McKinnie outside of a club in Miami on Spring Break in 2000 – he was possibly the biggest human I have ever seen up close. It was like seeing Bigfoot.
ARGUMENT WE WILL SEE AGAIN FOR THE NEXT SEVEN YEARS: Abolish the BCS
The Bowl Championship Series was relatively new in 2001, having been created in 1998 after Michigan and Nebraska split the National Championship the year before. Already, there were calls to move toward a playoff system. Street & Smith’s proposed a “Great Eight” tournament, and it apparently made too much sense for the NCAA to ever adopt it. I mean, it would be another three years before Auburn would go undefeated but not make the BCS Championship Game.
BIGGEST FALL FROM GRACE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: (tie) Florida State, Miami (FL), Nebraska
Those three schools I just mentioned were once powerhouses, routinely ranked in the Top 10 for much of the 90’s. Florida State won a National Championship in ’93 and ’99, Miami did it in ’89, ’91, and ’01 (and nearly again in ’02). Nebraska won it all in ’94 and split with Michigan in ’97. Now? None of them can even crack the Top 25. (The Seminoles made a brief appearance at No. 24 this season and promptly got bounced from the rankings after losing to Wake Forest.) Here’s a quick look at each program’s fall from the top…
• Nebraska: Crash-landed after hiring Bill Callahan as head coach in ’04. After finishing in the Top 25 in every season from 1969-2002, they’ve only finished ranked once since then.
• Miami: Their sudden and dramatic fall probably began when they got waxed in the 2005 Peach Bowl by LSU. In retrospect, joining the ACC was probably the worst thing the ‘Canes could have done.
• Florida State: They just started sucking. It had to happen sometime.
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE NATIONAL PREVIEW SECTION:
• People were already wondering how much longer Joe Paterno would coach, back when he was a spry 74-years-old. Seven years later, not much has changed.
• Jabar Gaffney, Tom Brady’s favorite Jabar, set NCAA freshman records for receiving yards (1,184) and TDs (14) as a Florida Gator in 2000.
• Antwaan Randle-El switched positions at Indiana, from quarterback to wide receiver. Probably a good idea.
• Colorado State was ranked #25 in the country, and I swear they were playing in every Thursday night game back in ’01.
BEST OLD-SCHOOL RECORDS: Rutgers Scarlet Knights
It’s amazing to see how much different (different meaning better) the uniforms in college football were seven years ago. No Nike template designs, no fancy lines on the pants, no goofy numbers. Lovable brands like Russell Athletic, Wilson, and Champion were still making plenty of uniforms. But the best has to be the Scarlet Knights: solid red jerseys, black pants, and a helmet with the word “Rutgers” in old English lettering, with a sword facing downward in place of the “T.” Tight end L.J. Smith has never looked better.
MOST DOMINATING “FORGOTTEN” PLAYER: (tie) Mike Nichols, CB, Wisconsin / Rocky Calmus, LB, Oklahoma
Calmus was the best player on a loaded Oklahoma defense that carried them to a National Title in 2000. Echols was a superstar at cornerback for the Badgers – a four-year starter with 4.3 speed and widely predicted to be one of the top cornerbacks in the draft. Coincidentally, both players were drafted by the Tennessee Titans in the 2002 draft, Calmus in the 3rd Round and Echols in the 4th. But neither of them panned out.
BEST COLLEGE QUARTERBACK FROM ’01 CURRENTLY PLAYING PROFESSIONALLY ELSEWHERE: (tie) Jason Gesser, Washington State / Casey Printers, TCU
Printers, with some help from RB LaDanian Tomlinson, led the Horned Frogs to a school-record 410 points as a sophomore in 2000. He now starts for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in the CFL. Gesser became WSU’s most prolific passer since Drew Bledose, and finished a respectable 7th in the 2002 Heisman Trophy race (there were seven players on the ballot?). He currently plays for the Arena League’s Utah Blaze. Great nickname there.
(By the way, the best quarterback from ’01 to have a blog named after him: former Syracuse QB Troy Nunes, the pride of Butler, PA. His namesake is used for the excellent blog, tony nunes is an absolute magician.)
FROM THE PATRIOT LEAGUE PREVIEW:
I know only a select few will appreciate this, but I had to include it...
“Lafayette: A young team that finished 2-9 gets even younger. How much younger? ‘I anticipate that by Game 3 we could be playing all freshmen and sophomores,’ coach Frank Tavani says of his second season.”
Boy, I sure am glad that 2001 was my junior year.
MOST STUNNING NAME ON THE “TOP 50 HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS OF 2001”: Jeff Francoeur
Francouer was a star DB at Parkview High School in Linburn, Georgia, and turned down a football scholarship to Clemson after leading his team to back-to-back state titles. As you know, he is now a right fielder for the Atlanta Braves (who got demoted to the minors at one point this season).
BEST NAME ON THE “50 JUNIORS TO WATCH” LIST: LeBron James, WR, St. Vincent-St. Mary
Before he was King James, LeBron was a terror on the gridiron, earning first-team all-state honors as a sophomore. That would be James’ last year of playing football, as he quit the team to “focus on another sport.” Wonder what that was.
BEST NAME ON THE “TOP 100 COLLEGE FRESHMEN” LIST: Joe Mauer, QB, Florida State
I don’t know how I never heard this one, but Mauer verbally committed to FSU before ultimately choosing to make millions as a catcher for the Twins. I’d say that was a good choice. |
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