The Most Underrated Program in the ACC

March 8th, 2010 by Niemo

- Niemo is a Senior Writer for TechHoops.com, the authority on Virginia Tech basketball

So who is the most underrated program in ACC basketball?  Easy.  It is the school that currently has the top football program in the conference – Virginia Tech.  But Blacksburg isn’t just the home of good pigskin anymore, now roundball is taking off.

While everyone knows north carolina and duke have dominated the sport over the last 20 years, not many people would list Virginia Tech in the next group.  You would hear maryland, maybe clemson, maybe florida state, possibly even georgia tech.  But let’s start to look at facts.  Do you know who has the third most top four finishes in the last six seasons?  You’ve probably already guessed – it is Virginia Tech.  The Hokies have earned a first round bye in the ACC Tournament in four of their six seasons in the league.  duke and unc are tied with the most with five.  Behind the Hokies, no one has more than two.  maryland?  This year is the first time they’ve earned a bye in the last six years.  georgia tech?  Zero top four finishes in the last six years.  boston college and florida state have two each but everyone else has one or none (miami and georgia tech have zero).

Then if you look at winning percentages over the last six seasons, the Hokies are tied with wake and boston college with a 50% winning percentage in ACC regular season games (bc obviously has just five years in the league).  duke has the highest winning percentage over that span, just edging unc with a 73% record to unc’s 72%.  The terps are third with a 55% winning percentage, aided largely by this season (they were 50% heading into this year).

The Hokies have also won one ACC Tournament games each of the last three seasons, so they’ve even played 50% ball in the tourney.

Sure the Hokies have just one NCAA Tournament appearance in their previous five seasons, and that is a big marker in the ACC.  But they should pick up their second invitation to the Big Dance this year.  And with that achievement, maybe it is time the rest of the conference starts respecting the Hokies for something other than football.

SCHOOL WINS LOSSES PCT% BYES
boston college 40 40 50.0% 2
clemson 47 49 49.0% 1
duke 70 26 72.9% 5
florida state 47 49 49.0% 2
georgia tech 36 60 37.5% 1*
maryland 53 43 55.2% 1
miami 37 59 38.5% 0
north carolina 69 27 71.9% 5
nc state 37 59 38.5% 1
uva 36 60 37.5% 1
VIRGINIA TECH 48 48 50.0% 4
wake forest 48 48 50.0% 2

Note: georgia tech’s bye was as the 5th seed in the 2005 ACC Tournament, when the league still had just 11 teams.

- Niemo is a Senior Writer for TechHoops.com, the authority on Virginia Tech basketball

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Hokies Finally Get It Done

March 7th, 2010 by Niemo

-Niemo is a Senior Writer for TechHoops.com, the authority on Virginia Tech basketball.

For the last two years Virginia Tech had work left to be done heading into the ACC Tournament.   Two years ago they were 9-7 in conference, usually an automative for the Big Dance, but got shut out even after winning one game in the ACC Tournament.  Apparently 10-8 against ACC teams, and 19-13 overall, wasn’t good enough (including a last second loss in the semi-finals to #1 unc).  Head Coach Seth Greenberg broke out the ‘certifiably insane’ line, but that wasn’t enough.

Last year the Hokies jumped out to a 6-3 ACC record, and 16-7 overall, but limped home with a 2-6 record and another last second loss to unc.  This time there was no questioning the NCAA Selection Committee, Tech simply didn’t earn a bid.

That’s why this year means so much to Hokie fans.  Sure, they played a crappy out of conference schedule.  But they ripped through it with a 13-1 record, including beating bubble team seton hall without Malcolm Delaney.  Then the Hokies entered ACC season.  People said their schedule in this area was weak, and that was proven true.  Of the five teams VT played twice, they all finished in the bottom five of the league.  But the Hokies went 3-3 against the top seven teams in the conference, including a win over a georgia tech bubble team.

When the Hokies absolutely had to win, they did.  And they finished 23-7 and 10-6 in the best conference in the world.  If that isn’t a NCAA Tournament team, then you are certifiably insane.

-Niemo is a Senior Writer for TechHoops.com, the authority on Virginia Tech basketball

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Football School vs Basketball School for ACC Supremacy

February 20th, 2010 by Niemo

-Courtesy of TechHoops.com, the authority on Virginia Tech basketball

duke will be in first place in the ACC regardless of what happens Sunday night at Cameron Indoor when the Virginia Tech Hokies storm into town.  But the winner of this game will be the clear cut “top team”, and hottest team.  The Tri-Lambdas, uh, I mean blue devils, come in having won seven straight ACC games and five in a row overall since getting woodshedded at georgetown.  duke just waxed second place maryland last year, and a win over VT would show they are by far the best team in the league.  The Hokies are the ACC’s surprise team, sitting in second place at 8-3, winners of five straight ACC games, and eight of nine overall.  Tech was picked to finish anywhere from sixth to ninth in the preseason by the media but have vaulted to silver medal position with two weeks to go in the regular season.  Tech’s win over the ACC’s new second place team at the time, wake forest, showed the Hokies are for real.  Now the two go head to head for the only time this season.

The game is not only a contrast of styles, but also schools.  duke is private, Virginia Tech a state school.  duke is fairly small with 6k undergrads, Virginia Tech has 25,000 students.  duke has less attractive, nerdy students.  The Hokies have hot chicks and cool dudes that actually get invited to parties.  And then you get to the main difference – duke is a basketball school with three national titles and 14 Final Fours. Virginia Tech is known for football, having won three ACC titles in their six years in the league, and making 17 straight bowl appearances (including six major bowls).

A win in Cameron for the Hokies would be huge for their program.  Tech won there three years ago early in the year (including the infamous Deron Washington leap over Greg Paulus) and it supercharged the VT season.  The Hokies made the NCAA Tournament that year for the first time in 12 years.  This year, the Hokies also hope to make the Big Dance and a win at duke would all but clinch that berth and a Tech’s first return trip since 2007.  It would also assure VT returns to the polls for the first time since three years ago.

Then you have duke, who needs no introduction in the basketball world.  What would this win mean to them?  Not much.  But that’s the thing, it means everything to Coach K and therefore his players.  They don’t take nights off and play every game like the other team is wearing powder blue.  You know they will want to send a message to the league much like they did when they destroyed the terps last week.

The key for the Hokies is they must come out of the gates well.  They have trailed by double digits in four of their last five meetings with duke, all losses.  georgetown and nc state beat the devils by shooting lights out, the hoyas hitting 70% from the floor and the pack hitting 58%.  The Hokies, who have struggled from the floor early in games lately, need to get their transition game going early and find easy buckets.  Tech must also hit their open looks from 18-feet in.  But that is easier said than done against a duke defense that is #2 in ACC games in Scoring Defense.  They force you outside your comfort zone and make it tough to get into your offense.

On defense, the Hokies must rebound well.  duke is deadly from three-point range with Singler, Smith, and Scheyer all shooting over 39%.  But when they do miss, Tech needs to box out Zoubek and the Plumlees and get stops, not give up second chances.  With duke as the #1 Offensive Rebounding team in ACC play, that will be a challenge.

The Hokies have their work cut out for them, but for Hokie fans, it is nice to have a meaningful game this late in the season.  Tech basketball resembled blue devil football just seven years ago.  Those days are long gone and Tech continues to battle for basketball respect.  A win Sunday night would go a long way towards earning that.

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A Month on the Bubble for Virginia Tech Basketball

February 16th, 2010 by glennv

It seems to end up like this every year for Virginia Tech hoops, regardless of the circumstances. Besides a 20-4 record, undefeated home record this season, and impressive 7-3 ACC record, the Hokies are still squarely on the bubble. Virtually every blog and website dedicated to Virginia Tech basketball is now writing about the Hokies chances of making the NCAA tournament.

I sure thought it would be different this year as Virginia Tech avoided the early season bad loss to an out of conference team, which is usually what kills them come tournament selection. The schedule seemed strong as well, as the Hokies had several BCS conference teams on the docket, including Iowa, Penn State, Georgia, Seton Hall, and also Temple who is the best team in the Atlantic 10. Read the rest of this entry »

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Best ACC Two Sport Rivalries

January 31st, 2010 by Niemo

The Hokies face their primary and secondary rivals this week in basketball, traveling to uva and miami.  The Hokies/hoos football game is always a big deal in the Commonwealth of Virginia despite the fact the Hokies have owned the series, winning 10 of the last 11.  The Hokies/canes football game has often been for a Big East or ACC title, and on a couple of occasions the winner went on to play for the National Championship.  But the basketball games between VT and uva, or VT and miami, rarely have any league significance.  The VT/uva rivalry is decent in basketball, as evidenced by the rowdy atmosphere in Charlottesville Thursday, but it certainly isn’t big on the Richter Scale compared to football with the two fan bases.  I bet many Hokie and wahoo alums and fans didn’t even know the teams played Thursday until they read the paper the next day… wait, I’m dating myself… I mean scanned the web the next day.  And the miami arena probably won’t even be sold out for the VT/miami match-up on Sunday.

So this got me thinking – what are the best ACC rivalries in football and basketball?  Let’s take a look.

The first thing you have to do is figure out what the rivalries are:

School Primary Rival Secondary Rival(s)
bc Non-ACC -
clemson Non-ACC gt or fsu
duke unc wake
fsu Non-ACC and miami -
ga tech Non-ACC clemson
maryland ??? duke
miami fsu Non-ACC or VT
unc duke nc state
nc state unc duke or wake
uva VT unc
VT uva miami
wake duke -

Obviously any rivalry that involves a non-ACC team we can eliminate.  I’ll also eliminate any rivalries that aren’t shared – for example, maryland hates duke and Coach K but I’m pretty sure the blue devil fans don’t circle the maryland game on their calendar first (or second or even third probably).  And boston college doesn’t even have a real ACC rival, largely due to how far off the ACC footprint they are.

Let’s break down what that leaves us with.

  • clemson and georgia tech: The two schools are less than two hours apart and are cross-division rivals in football, so they play every year.  This year they played twice in football with the ACC title on the line.  They also play twice each season in basketball.  Since both teams are factors in football and basketball (well, at least georgia tech is starting to become a factor again in basketball), this is one of the best rivalries.  The only issue is, I’m not sure how hated of a rivalry this is.  Both schools have in-state primary rivals (usc and georgia) that they dislike much, much more.  So that tarnishes how great this rivalry really is.
  • clemson and florida state: This game is a big deal in football and often is a big factor in who will win the Atlantic Division.  And when the Bowdens were coaching against each other, this rivalry got even hotter.  But both Bowdens are gone and this isn’t an intense rivalry in basketball, so I wouldn’t rank this one up there.
  • duke and unc: This is obviously the best basketball rivalry in the ACC and probably in the nation.  The fans of both schools care about the football game, but let’s face it, the outcome most years is just for pride with neither school going to a bowl.  unc has improved in football, but this football game still doesn’t mean much and only has 1/1000th of the intensity of the basketball games.
  • duke and wake forest: Pretty good in basketball, but as with duke and unc, who cares in football?  It is a glorified pillow fight with 30,000 spectators (if that).
  • fsu and miami: This is to football what duke and unc is to basketball.  Maybe not that great but this game has been a huge deal for many, many years.  This rivalry put the term “wide right” on the map, a term all sports fans know today.  But in basketball, who cares?  The fans sure don’t see to care much and the game rarely has any significance in the ACC race.
  • unc and nc state: The pack are unc’s bigger rival in football than duke, I’d say, but again, who cares?  This game rarely means anything other than pride.  The two state schools haven’t won, or even tied for, an ACC football title since 1980.  Ouch.  And in basketball, let’s face it, this game means a lot more to state than the heels.  It is like the michigan and michigan state rivalry – the little bro wants to beat up on the bigger, more accomplished brother.
  • nc state and duke or wake: Again, see my notes from the other Carolina rivalries.  Who really cares about a rivalry where the winner in football might go to the Car Care Bowl at best.  And these are certainly secondary rivalries.
  • VT and uva: (see earlier in the article)
  • VT and miami: (see earlier in the article)

There are very few rivalries in the nation that mean a lot nationally in both sports (florida and tennessee along with texas and oklahoma and usc/ucla come to mind).  The ACC doesn’t have any of those.  But based on the list above, I’d have to say the clemson and georgia tech rivalry has the most significance in both sports, though this may be a temporary thing.  I’d say the Virginia Tech and virginia rivalry is the best in terms of fan intensity in both sports.  The VT/uva football and basketball games are always sellouts and always bring out the best (and worst) in the two fan bases.  It means something no matter how bad the schools may be.

-Niemo is a Senior Writer for TechHoops.com, the authority on Virginia Tech basketball

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Upcoming Hokie Games Likely a Tough Ticket

January 31st, 2010 by glennv

Despite today’s close loss at Miami, this year’s Virginia Tech men’s basketball team has been a thrill to watch so far. Even today, they battled back to make a game with Miami after being down as many as 19 points as the ‘Canes shot a blistering 70% in the first half. Its tough to beat a team that is shooting lights out, especially a team like Miami that wins by shooting 3-pointers, but the Hokies did what they’ve done several times this year – fight hard on defense and scrap their way back into a ball game.

The game on Thursday versus Virgina is one Hokie fans will cherish for a while. Being down by 14 in the first half, then down by 10 with about 2 minutes left, Virginia Tech stormed back with steals, turnovers, and clutch shots to win in overtime. Those games are always fun to win, but when its against your rival even more so.

The Virginia Tech schedule gets tough in the coming weeks, and while most games are home in Cassell Colosseum, the opponents are good ones and will make for a tough ticket in Blacksburg.
Read the rest of this entry »

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If I Could Talk to Jeff Allen for 5 Minutes

January 31st, 2010 by TechSuperFans

Oddly enough I was working on this piece about Jeff Allen before he was ejected Thursday night against the hated Cavaliers. Fortunately the Hokies (namely JT Thompson) stepped up strong and finished that ACC road game off with a huge win in overtime. But I find the ejection symptomatic of what ails Jeff Allen…..his attitude. Not that he intentionally elbowed Jeff Jones, but because the refs would assume he did. And because of what’s at stake for this young man’s future (namely a potential multi-million dollar payday), I wish I was someone he trusted, who would listen to what I have to say because this is what it would be:

Jeff, all of us in life, at some point become who we are. Young childhood is formative and so are teenage years, but for most folks who go to college, that is the crucible where all the ingredients of our past get cooked into the type of people we will be for much of the rest of our lives.

So like your classmates, the choices you make in the next few years will determine, by no means everything, but certainly a lot about who you are and what your life will be like. Unlike those classmates, and the other 99.999% of us, the choices you make in these next few years will affect your ability to make many millions of dollars.

See what it comes down to is that you are capable of playing in the NBA. You are a big man with the quick hands and nimble feet of a guard. You are naturally gifted and more than that, it looks like you have a great grasp of the fundamentals. The NBA likes players like that and they pay lots of money to the top picks who demonstrate those skills.

But the NBA, and in fact the world beyond, will also judge you by your attitude and how you present yourself. I have seen you so apathetic on the court that I was astonished a man as intense as Seth Greenberg was leaving you in the game. Against BC earlier this season, there were many possessions on offense where, when I went back and watched the tape, you literally stood in the same spot with your hands by your side, about 15 feet from the basket and didn’t move…at all. Against UNC in the 2nd half, when the Hokies were still in the game, you were letting the UNC big men get position all the way down on the blocks.

Now listen to me well here – I am not saying these things to pile on to what has been written and said about your play by many others recently, including at times your coach. I am a fan, both of your play and of what I sense is a guy who doesn’t say a lot, but wants to let his play speak for him. But I’m telling you that what NBA teams are going to want to see is a player who doesn’t just work his tail off, but LOOKS like he’s working his tail off. Who plays at a high level consistently. Because while you are incredibly talented, you are not a top five pick, meaning that where or if you get drafted will ultimately be tied to how you approach the game between now and the end of next season.

And the attitude you bring to the court also dictates how refs are going to treat you. Just look at your ejection the other night. Surely, it was a foul when you caught Jeff Jones with an elbow. I question greatly the referee’s judgment that it was a flagrant foul. And I am certain from the things I’ve seen on a basketball court, that it wasn’t worthy of an ejection. But that was your penalty because of actions from your past, and the attitude that allows refs to ASSUME things about your behavior. Recognize this now, and give some thought to see if what I’m saying makes sense.

If you come out the remainder of this season and next with the type of attitude you’ve had until now, it is still certainly possible you will get drafted. But like many Hokies before you, more than likely you’ll end up overseas or in the NBA Development League trying to make a 10 day contract with a team where you might make the bench and if all that happens, you could have a comfortable living, to be sure.

But if you really look inside yourself and commit to approaching the game with intensity and an attitude of leadership amongst your teammates, and you bring that night in and night out for the next season and a half, combined with your ability, you have a chance to sign a big-time 1st round contract which means millions of dollars for you and your family. There haven’t been many draft picks from VT in the past decade (only one pick in fact – Deron Washington) and so, along with Malcolm Delaney, you could also elevate the status of the Virginia Tech program and help validate what Coach Greenberg is trying to build. In the immortal words of Muhammad Ali

“Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them – a desire, a dream, a vision.” Muhammad Ali

That is what I would say to Jeff Allen. I’m rooting for him and the rest of the team to put together a special season and make The Dance and I know if Allen becomes a force for the team they will get there.

GO HOKIES!!!!

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Thursday’s Hokies/hoos Rivalry Game Takes on Somber Air

January 26th, 2010 by Niemo

Thursday’s match-up between Virginia Tech and uva has become a lot more melancholy with Tuesday’s news that a body was found in southern Albemarle County, and that Virginia State Police are “fairly confident” it is missing 20-year-old Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington.  What looked to be a battle between a team tied for the ACC lead, uva, and a team looking to strengthen their NCAA Tournament profile and move into the upper half of the league, VT, is now turning into a time of reflection and a two hour distraction from the sadness.

The connections between this game and this incident should not be lost on anyone.  Morgan Harrington was a Virginia Tech student.  She had traveled up to uva to attend a Metallica concert (anyone that knows Virginia Tech knows what Metallica, specifically the song Enter Sandman, means to Hokies).  The concert was at John Paul Jones Arena.  Her body was found just miles from the arena, near where she was last seen.  Thursday’s game will also be played at John Paul Jones Arena.

Personally, I know it will be tough to get past all this as I travel down to Charlottesville on Thursday to cheer on my beloved Hokies against our hated rivals.  But on Thursday, Hokies and wahoos will all come together as Virginians and grieve this loss that has touched both our institutions so deeply.  If 2007 was any indication of how things will be, we can expect uva to once again show tremendous hospitality.

After the tragic and devastating massacre of 32 Virginia Tech students and staff on April 16th, 2007, uva showed how much love this state has for its own, regardless of whether you wear Chicago maroon and burnt orange or orange and blue.  In the football regular season finale, the Hokies battled the hoos for the Coastal Division crown in Charlottesville.  But the class uva showed meant as much to Virginia Tech that day as the Coastal crown and Commonwealth Cup did.  The hoos really showed Virginia is one big family that day with numerous tributes and memorials.  Thursday will likely be a similar scene.  Even at the VT at uva football game this year uva handed out flyers and put Morgan’s picture on the videoboard to try and help find her.  We’re all Virginians on Thursday and we will all share in this sadness.

As a Hokie, it is hard to bear another loss in the Hokie tribe.  They say bad things come in threes.  By that logic, Tech shouldn’t have to deal with anything for a long time since Hokies have had to deal with numerous tragedies:

  • August 2006 – a Montgomery County Police Officer and security guard are shot and killed near the VT campus
  • April 16, 2007 – 32 Virginia Tech students and staff members are massacred by a Virginia Tech student, who takes his own life
  • January 2009 – as Virginia Tech is knocking off #1 wake forest in basketball, a Virginia Tech student is beheaded on campus by another grad student
  • August 2009 – two VT students were shot and killed while camping at a national park
  • October 2009 – Morgan Harrington goes missing after attending a Metallica concert

I know as I write, and look at that list, it is hard for me to comprehend.  Between myself and my two siblings that attended Virginia Tech, we covered 10 years in Blacksburg. Nothing even remotely close to this happened while we were there, other than a student falling to their death out of a dorm room window.  This small town campus that we love so much, and find so safe, has become the butt of jokes all over the nation and likely scared some parents away from sending their kids there.  This boggles my mind, knowing the town so well and traveling there at least 10 times a year even now.  But I can also say my sadness for the loss of a fellow Hokie is as strong today as it was back when this run of tragic incidents began.  I hope this three year long nightmare is finally over.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of Morgan Harrington.  May you all (and we all) find peace in this tough time.

-Niemo is a Senior Writer for TechHoops.com, the authority on Virginia Tech basketball

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New Facilities Already Paying Dividends for Hokie Basketball?

December 29th, 2009 by glennv

Virginia Tech Basketball Head Coach Seth Greenberg is known as a tireless recruiter, and has had good success in his years in Blacksburg in attracting ACC level talent. While Virginia Tech basketball in recent years still doesn’t compete for top 50 recruits regularly with the top of the conference like Duke and North Carolina, Greenberg has been able to bring in top 150 guys who can compete in the ACC an produce results.

Greenberg also knows what it takes to build a program that will attract top talent, and one of the foundations for this strategy was upgrading the facilities. The player facilities for football have gone through massive improvements over the decade thanks to an infusion of donations generated ultimately from success on the filed. The basketball program hasn’t been so lucky, until recently.

However this year Virginia Tech opened its new $21M Basketball Practice Facility which is state of the art and has gotten rave reviews from everyone who has seen it. It supposedly has everything a men’s (and women’s) basketball team could ever want: practice courts, locker rooms, meeting rooms, coaches offices, training rooms, study areas, weight rooms, rehab facilities, and more.

These types of investments are certainly great for the players currently in your program, but they are just as important for getting players to your program, which brings us back to Greensberg’s strategy. Competing with the best in the ACC for recruits means being level in what recruits are looking for in a program – winning, coaches, close to home, and facilities. Greenberg has managed to create an environment that now has many of the key ingredients top players are looking for, including a top flight basketball training facility.

Just yesterday, the Hokies received one of their highest rated verbal commitments in history. C J Barkdale, a 6-7 225 lb forward from Danville, VA committed to Virginia Tech over schools such as Maryland, Wake Forest, and Florida, and is ranked anywhere from #28 to #78 depending on the recruiting service you look at. How much did the various ingredients play in Barkdale’s decision to come to Virginia Tech? Who knows, as interviews with C J mainly talk about his affinity to the coaches and location.  But Hokie fans can’t help but wonder if the upgraded facilities will start to open the doors to more players the caliber of Barkdale in the future.

Of course the other area Greenberg needs to focus on is winning, and specifically making the NCAA tournament. The Hokies have actually fared well in ACC play, but have only made the NCAA tourney once in his tenure. Recruits want to play for a winner, not just a school with nice meeting rooms.

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The Heisman Race and a Boy Named Suh

December 11th, 2009 by TechSuperFans

Oh, the mighty Heisman! My, oh my, the voting results will be revealed on Saturday night! I think I might SWOON!!!

Listen, the Heisman Trophy is an overblown, media-driven joke and has been for many years. The award currently goes to the most well-known offensive player on a top five team. Of course, being media-driven, that criteria has evolved over time. Going back to B.T. (Before Tebow) the award was reserved for the most well-known junior or senior on a top five team (hence senior QB Eric Crouch beat sophomore QB Rex Grossman in 2001). Before that it was the best offensive player on a team playing for the national title (with the one outstanding exception being in 1997 when Charles Woodson deservedly beat Peyton Manning for the award – but we’ll get back to Woodson).

Don’t get me wrong, from its inception, the Heisman Trophy has made some absolutely AWFUL decisions such as Gary Beban over O.J. Simpson in 1967 and George Rogers over Hugh Green in 1980. But a solid case can be made for the vast majority of the winners up until the dreaded race of 1992. Before that year, players like Barry Sanders and Andre Ware and Bo Jackson could win the award despite not playing for a national title because they were still clearly the most outstanding player in college football.

But in 1992, a senior QB for the Miami Hurricanes named Gino Torretta had a pretty good season and his team played for the national title (where they were destroyed by Alabama). However, a sophomore RB named Marshall Faulk – you might have heard of him – playing healthy in only 9 games, led the nation in rushing for the 2nd straight year with 1630 yards and tore up ranked opponents like the USC Trojans and BYU Cougars with highlight-filled runs. You could have taken any college football fan, showed them the highlight package that NBC put together for Marshall Faulk and Gino Torretta on the Heisman show that year and the statistics against ranked competition, and Marshall Faulk would have won the award in a landslide. But take the Heisman panel of voters and somehow Torretta won.

I remember being a senior in high school who followed college football very closely and knew who Marshall Faulk was, thinking, WHAT?! It was my first real sense of political impurity in college football (boy if that sense hasn’t been overdosed in the subsequent 17 years) and it took me aback. I thought there had been a miscount. It just wasn’t possible. The best running back in college football since Barry Sanders didn’t win the award for most outstanding player?

That dangerous precedent set the tone and while the effects weren’t immediate (Charlie Ward, Rashaan Salaam, Danny Wuerffel and Ricky Williams all deserved the award and won) they rippled down over time. After 1995 we saw Eddie George over Tommie Frazier which was certainly questionable. 2001 had the aforementioned Crouch over Grossman debacle and then the floodgates fell open in 2003 when Jason White the QB at Oklahoma, LAUGHABLY won over WR Larry Fitzgerald at Pittsburgh. Seriously, at the time, maybe 5% of true college football fans would have said that Jason White was a more outstanding player that year than Larry Fitzgerald.

Since then, Matt Leinart beat Adrian Peterson, Troy Smith won over Darren McFadden and then last year, Sam Bradford for Oklahoma won, while Michael Crabtree from Texas Tech didn’t even finish in the TOP 3!

There’s a method to this madness to be sure – it’s about the media and money. You see, ESPN currently owns the broadcast rights of the presentation. Those rights were worth $200 grand to CBS in 1977, so you can imagine what they are worth today. ESPN pays that money to the Heisman Trophy Trust. You can be DAMN sure that the most outstanding player is very likely going to be the most well-known player of the finalists. Higher ranked teams get more nationally televised games, and you’d have probably seen this player a WHOLE lot on ESPN/ABC so that when they win the award, the rebroadcasts of “great” games that winner played in will get higher ratings on ESPN Classic.

Now I wouldn’t argue for a minute that Mark Ingram and Toby Gerhardt haven’t had good seasons. Gerhardt deserves the award more so than Ingram in my mind, but reasonable people can argue that. But the plainly obvious answer to the question, who is the most outstanding player in college football this season is Ndamukong Suh, the defensive tackle from Nebraska.

Before I get into Suh’s credentials, let’s explain why he won’t win. He doesn’t meet the new Heisman criteria:
A) He’s not an offensive player
B) He wasn’t a national story until his supernatural performance against Texas in the Big 12 title game
C) Not enough of his games were on ABC or ESPN because Nebraska wasn’t highly ranked enough

Note that none of the above have anything to do with being the most outstanding player, but in reality only one defensive player has actually ever won the award. That was Charles Woodson in 1997 and he also played on offense and returned kicks, plus his team was undefeated and shared the national title, so he was able to pass the “well-known” test. Woodson deserved it and I thought the Trophy was returning to integrity when he won, but alas no defensive player was won since and in the current environment, where the media pressure is even greater and even more money is involved, I believe it will be nearly impossible to see it again.

After all, if Ndamukong Suh can’t win it this year, what does a defensive player have to do? Suh was quite literally unstoppable this season. I wrote on TechSuperFans after the Hokies beat Nebraska on a miracle play, that Suh was the best tackle at the collegiate level I’d seen in several years. In that game he had 8 tackles, 2 QB hurries and 4 pass deflections. I’m not going to go game-by-game through his statistics, but he singlehandedly beat Missouri. He nearly singlehandedly beat Texas.

Have you ever heard of a defensive TACKLE nearly singlehandedly winning games for his team? A guy who is getting double teamed on nearly every play has 82 tackles for the season????? How is that humanly possible? I don’t know but I guess it’s just as possible as him losing the Heisman Trophy because he doesn’t play offense on a top 5 team. Ndamukong Suh was the most outstanding player in college football this season and the awards that aren’t yet packed with politics and money have already said so (Suh has won the Nagurski, the Outland, the Lombardi and the Bednarik awards). When he doesn’t win the award on Saturday I will just chuckle again, and the good news is so will Suh. This young man will be laughing all the way to the bank because the only top 5 he has to care about is that he will be a guaranteed top 5 pick in the NFL draft in April and whoever wins the award will become a trivia answer for college football nerds like me.

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