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| SJS College Football Extravaganza |
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| Boughter's Bluster | ||
 Quarterback Nation - Not!Last season Webmaestro wrote a piece called "Quarterback Nation" extolling the virtues of the 1998 crop of QBs, from UCLA's Cade McNown to Syracuse's Donovan McNabb, multi-talented signal callers were the prominent feature of college football. A quick scan of the big games last weekend reveals this is not the case in 1999. This year we have guys like Kenny Kelly and Eric Crouch, and it's a big step down. Top-ranked FSU has one of the better signal callers in Chris Weinke, the 27-year-old junior. Weinke (pronounced 'when-key') looks pretty good so far, but he's no future number-one draft choice. He will in fact only be a few years away from retirement if and when he finally makes it to the NFL. Second-ranked Penn State can't decide who their guy is, the generally underwhelming Kevin Thompson or the more athletic but mistake-prone Rashard Casey. Tennessee QB Tee Martin led the Vols to a lucky national title last year, but looked absolutely terrible on Saturday night against Florida (of course, this was after the two cheap shots help to separate his throwing shoulder). His counterpart on the other side of the ball, UF's Doug Johnson, did not play much better. Sure, he threw for 338 yards and a couple of TDs against Tennessee; that was just enough to offset his three interceptions. After the last pick, which set up UT for a potential game-winning score, he could be seen up close on TV coming off the field, mouthing these words: "That was where I wanted to throw it". Where was that? Four yards behind the receiver and two feet over his head? Complaining about non-calls to the refs, shaking his fists after a TD toss, slapping the ground and sulking on the sidelines after a bad throw-- this guy is the new Ryan Clement (the former, emotionally unstable Miami QB). The current Miami QB, Kelly, obviously needs more experience. Then he'll stop throwing all those interceptions. Kelly's best pass is to just lob it up there and hope that his talented receiver, Santana Moss, can go get it and make a big play out of it all by himself. Notre Dame's Jarious Jackson can throw a pretty good pass-- his problem is that he keeps getting sacked on crucial plays at the end of games. Jamie Barnette of N.C. State is ostensibly a savvy veteran and a four-year starter. On Saturday against FSU, however, he looked to return the favor that Weinke did his club last year. He did this superbly by throwing four interceptions and fumbling in his own endzone. Nebraska thought they were returning their exciting yet injury-prone option QB Bobby Newcombe this season, but he was basically beaten out for the job by Eric Crouch and voluntarily switched positions to wide receiver. Against Southern Miss last weekend, Newcombe didn't see a lot of action. Crouch led Nebraska to a whopping 185 yards in total offense against Southern Miss on Saturday. OK, it's not all bad. You have Drew Brees, who is picking up where he left off in 1998, leading Purdue's explosive offense. The Boilermakers are off to a 3-0 start. And you have to love the undersized Joe Hamilton, who threw for about 400 yards against FSU despite getting hit on almost every play (We "hit through the whistle", according to 'Noles defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews). This week, against Central Florida, Hamilton threw for 161 yards and a TD, and ran for 100 yards and 2 more scores. He's one of the most exciting QB's since Charlie Ward. Chris Redman and Chad Pennington are a couple of other Heisman trophy candidates: Redman, of Lousiville, has already thrown for 1012 yards and 10 TDs in just three games.
It's ABC's Jack Arute, for his sideline interview with injured Florida State fullback William McCray. McCray, a starter coming into 1999, tore his ACL and has been replaced in the lineup by former QB prodigy Dan Kendra. Kendra, of course has played very well since given the starting opportunity. So Arute does the interview with McCray (who's on crutches) pretending to be interested in the young man's plight. But at the end of the interview, Arute gets this stupid grin on his face, looks at the camera, and says (something like) "Anybody remember Wally Pipp? And who was guy that replaced him in the lineup?". What an insensitive comment from a useless "sideline" reporter. |
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