NCAA Football Trash Talk Thread....

[Zeus]

http://nfl.fanhouse.com/2010/03/17/t...ay-on-pro-day/

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Tim Tebow won a lot of big games at Florida Field during his epic career, but Wednesday's defeat of some of his biggest critics rates as one of his most impressive victories yet.

"To be honest with you," NFL Network draft analyst Mike Mayock said after watching the new and improved Tebow model, "I was blown away."

The man under the microscope felt pretty good about it, too.

"There was a lot of pressure, but thankfully I've been in some other situations where there was pressure," Tebow said after the much-anticipated unveiling of his revamped throwing motion during the University of Florida's pro day. "That's the great thing about work ethic; when you want to change something, if you work on it enough, it'll change."

He definitely changed some perceptions about his stock in the 2010 NFL Draft.

An estimated crowd of more than 2,000 filed into the stadium and ignored a light rain to watch about a dozen Gators audition for nearly 100 NFL decision-makers, including five head coaches. More than 150 media credentials were issued for the affair. Even a concessions stand was open.

"Pretty elaborate deal, for a pro day," Carolina coach John Fox said.

And No. 15 was the main event.

At 11:53 a.m., Tebow emerged from the same south end zone tunnel from which he was wildly cheered by 90,000 the last four seasons. He stretched and warmed up while his teammates completed their shuttle-run, three-cone and other drills before he was called to the north end zone to begin.

"C'mon Tim!" shouted a woman from the bleachers wearing Tebow jersey. "Show 'em all how wrong they are!"

It had been nearly six weeks since Tebow's underwhelming performance during Senior Bowl workouts, where his flawed mechanics and footwork were on display for every NFL heavy-hitter to see. The performance only fed the analysis from the likes of Mayock, Mel Kiper Jr., ESPN's Todd McShay and others that Tebow was a mid-round project at best, and should consider moving to H-back.

Following that week in Mobile, Ala., Tebow's agent, Jimmy Sexton, went to work reworking his client. He sent the two-time national champion and former Heisman Trophy winner to Nashville, Tenn., to huddle with a group of quarterback gurus -- led by Zeke Bratkowski, Sam Wyche and Marc Trestman -- to shorten Tebow's elongated delivery, tighten his mechanics and improve his feet.

The idea of Tebow successfully making such radical changes so close to the draft was met with skepticism by just about everyone at the next level.

Not by those working with him, though.

"He is such a unique athlete," Bratkowski said. "People just don't realize how hard he works."

They do now.

After some stock footwork and technique drills, Tebow completed all but two of the 48 passes he threw to his former UF receivers, Riley Cooper, David Nelson and Aaron Hernandez. And he threw them all: outs, fades, slants, rollouts to both sides and deep balls. He wasn't perfect (especially on the latter), but he was better than anyone -- especially the skeptics -- had any reason to expect he would be, especially after the disappointment at the Senior Bowl.

"Every time you want to write him off, you start looking back at the intangibles, the work ethic and the competitiveness," said McShay, one of Tebow's most vocal bashers relative to his pro prospects. "If we're talking about just an average college player with all these obstacles to overcome -- reading progressions in the pocket to mechanics to accuracy throwing the ball -- we're talking about a fifth- or sixth-round pick. ... But he has all it takes to defy the odds. If anyone can do it, he can."

More Mayock: "He looks like a completely different guy. He still gets into a little bit of trouble overthrowing or over-striding. Those are old habits, that's all. And he still has to replicate [the motion] with 11 angry men chasing him one day. But what he's done in six weeks with that delivery and his footwork is a testament to his coaches and the fact he's willing to work so hard."

After the session, all five head coaches -- Mike Tomlin, Tom Coughlin, John Fox, Eric Mangini and Raheem Morris -- greeted Tebow with hugs and words of encouragement.

"They were pleased with the improvements," Tebow said of the feedback. "I don't know what they're saying behind closed doors, but what they said to me was positive, and that's how I'll take it."

New Cleveland Browns president Mike Holmgren, who has cut ties to both his quarterbacks (Derek Anderson and Brady Quinn) this offseason, spoke to Tebow individually for several minutes. At the NFL combine last month, Holmgren expressed admiration with Tebow's goals of improving, but questioned whether it could be done so quickly -- and if it was necessary.

"It appears he's made some adjustments in a very short period of time," Holmgren said. "I would say this: If you look hard enough at anybody, you can be real picky about stuff, but you better be careful about losing sight of the big picture and of the player he really is; the winner he is; the person he is. There is a lot of good about this young man."

Apparently, there is more following Wednesday's performance than there was before it.

The next phase of the evaluation process will be individual workouts with teams. Tebow said he has "quite a few" scheduled, but did not say how many or with whom. Buffalo and Seattle reportedly are on that list.

If the next five weeks yield the results of the last five, there could be "quite a few" more.

He's already turned heads and changed minds.

"The people who support and believe in me, that pushes me," Tebow said. "And the people that don't believe in me, that pushes me even more."

[PQ]

Originally Posted by Zeus

Dammit man I'm Tim Freaking Tebow. You think I take my own tests???

[Zeus]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...html?eref=sihp

The glittering genius of the Cold, Hard Football Facts is that we admire only numbers and productivity.

We put little stock in a player's pedigree. And we put even less stock in the "pundits" and their outdated weapon of choice, the opinion.

So it is today that we dive into one of the biggest stories of the 2010 NFL Draft by looking at the college productivity of six legendary quarterbacks here in the modern pass-happy era.
Six Big-Name College Quarterbacks
Player Comp. Att. Pct. Yards YPA TD INT Rating*
Player A 851 1,354 62.85 11,201 8.27 90 33 100.93
Player B 825 1,232 66.96 8,772 7.12 76 37 95.60
Player C 841 1,383 60.81 10,286 7.44 84 36 93.15
Player D 493 797 61.86 6,625 8.31 52 21 99.04
Player E 564 986 57.20 7,731 7.84 51 33 85.72
Player F 661 985 67.11 9,286 9.43 88 15 120.72
* Using the NFL formula for passer rating, not the NCAA formula

The numbers aren't even close. One player dominates. One player leaps screaming off the list. That dominant individual, of course, is Player F. This quarterback:

• Was the most accurate of any of these six passers.

• Dominated the average per attempt category -- our favorite number -- by better than 1 yard per attempt over the No. 2 player on the list.

• Boasts a passer rating so sky high it defies description, nearly 20 full points better than the No. 2 player on the list.

Elsewhere, Player F was No. 2 in total TD passes -- but easily No. 1 in TD pass percentage. Player F threw a TD on 8.9 percent of his pass attempts -- easily outpacing Player A, who threw a touchdown on 6.6 percent of his pass attempts.

Finally, Player F protected the ball much better than any of the other quarterbacks on this list. Player F threw an interception on just 1.52 percent of attempts -- easily outpacing Player C, who threw an interception on 2.60 percent of attempts. And you know what we've always told you: quarterbacks who throw picks lose games. Quarterbacks who don't throw picks win games.

Dying to know who they are, aren't ya? Well, the numbers represent the college career stats of six of the greatest quarterbacks in the modern history of the SEC. Here goes:

• Player A is Peyton Manning. He played for Tennessee in the SEC and was the No. 1 overall pick in the 1998 draft.

• Player B is Tim Couch. He played for Kentucky in the SEC and was the No. 1 overall pick in the 1999 draft.

• Player C is Eli Manning. He played for Ole Miss in the SEC and was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2004 draft.

• Player D is JaMarcus Russell. He played for LSU in the SEC and was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2007 draft.

• Player E is Matt Stafford. He played for Georgia in the SEC and was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2009 draft.
tim-tebow-is.jpg
Tim Tebow has been downgraded by some teams for having poor throwing mechanics.
Bob Rosato/SI

• And, finally, Player F is Tim Tebow. He played for Florida in the SEC and will be far from the No. 1 overall pick in the 2010 draft.

The list tells us many things.

First, it tells us the SEC has dominated the draft in recent years, as you probably already knew. But five guys at the most important position on the field taken No. 1 overall in a 12-year stretch is a remarkable accomplishment, even by the lofty standards of the dominant conference in college football.

Second, it tells us that NFL talent evaluators are out of their freaking minds.

Tebow, as you know, is the biggest question mark in the 2010 draft among the pigskin punditistas. He's the highest rated passer in the history of SEC football. He was easily a better passer than Peyton Manning or Stafford or Couch or any of the guys whose ability to pass was never really questioned by NFL talent analysts.

And yet NFL evaluators, for some reason, aren't sold on Tebow. Couch and Russell are two bona fide NFL busts, even though pro football talent evaluators couldn't usher them into the league fast enough. Yet these same talent evaluators harbor grave doubts about the ability of the greatest and most efficient passer in SEC history to pass the ball at the next level.

Consider, Charley Casserly, the longtime NFL executive turned NFL Network analyst, who was on the air Thursday telling the world that Tebow will go no higher than the fourth round of the draft next month.

Other executives seem obsessed by the trivia over Tebow's mechanics, while overlooking the rather irrefutable fact that he dominated college football like no player in memory and despite the fact that he was, by any objective measure, a much better passer than Couch, Russell, Stafford, and either of the Manning brothers.

Tebow didn't just pass the ball far more effectively than any of these No. 1 overall picks. It pays to remember that, in his spare time, he set the SEC career record for rushing touchdowns. And he won a Heisman Trophy. And two national titles. Other than that, he didn't do much.

The anti-Tebow crowd will argue, weakly, that he was surrounded by greater talent than those other passers. The anti-Tebow crowd, of course, is confused.

Let's look at Peyton Manning. Last we remember, he played with not one, not two, but three receivers taken in the top two rounds of the draft: Joey Kent, Marcus Nash and Peerless Price. His team was so loaded with talent that it won the national title the year after he left.

JaMarcus Russell played with arguably the most talented teams of the past decade. They won national titles in 2003 and 2007 and he watched as 34 of his LSU teammates were grabbed in the NFL draft.

Stafford? Well, Georgia is a prolific pipeline of NFL talent. Stafford was one of three starting offensive players from the 2008 Bulldogs taken in the first 50 picks of the 2009 draft (Knowshon Moreno, Mohamed Massaquoi).

Ole Miss is hardly the SEC's best hotbed of talent. But almost the entire offensive line that protected Eli Manning was good enough to earn a shot in the NFL, including not one but two of his centers: Ben Claxton (2003 draft) and Chris Spencer (2005), one of a small handful of centers ever taken in the first round of the NFL draft.

Couch? Sure, he didn't have much around him. In fact, he's one of just three first-round draft picks to come out of Kentucky in the last 25 years. But in any case, his passing numbers pale in comparison to those produced by Tebow.

The anti-Tebow crowd could also throw out the old David Klingler argument. You know, "anybody can put up big stats in the college game." But Tebow didn't just put up big stats ... he put up supremely efficient stats. He was more accurate, and produced more big passing plays, and was more likely to put the ball in the end zone, and more likely to keep it out of the hands of opposing defenders, than any of the recent collection of No. 1 passing phenoms to come out of the SEC.

Tebow was, by any measure, a better player, a better quarterback and, yes, a better passer than any of these No. 1 picks.

We understand that college success does not translate to NFL success. The long history of Heisman winners turned NFL busts underscores that argument.

However, in the gamble that is the NFL draft, we'll roll the dice on the proven and unmatched passing talent of Tebow rather than on the sorry track record of pro football talent evaluators.

Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...#ixzz0jD8CW3NJ
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[Zeus]

SI's All-Decade Awards for players/Coaches/Teams


http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...html?eref=sihp

[BamaCommando]

Wow, I came here specifically to see some crowing about Tebow being the second QB taken on the draft. What a letdown . . . . oh, and I was going to point out that he was selected after 2 players from UA!

RTR!

[PonyMan]

Originally Posted by BamaCommando

Wow, I came here specifically to see some crowing about Tebow being the second QB taken on the draft. What a letdown . . . . oh, and I was going to point out that he was selected after 2 players from UA!

Nice to see the first four picks came from The Big 12!! Brady Quinn will need someone to carry his helmet and luggage for him. Oh! Nobody cares about UA!!!

[Zeus]

Originally Posted by BamaCommando

Wow, I came here specifically to see some crowing about Tebow being the second QB taken on the draft. What a letdown . . . . oh, and I was going to point out that he was selected after 2 players from UA!

RTR!

4 out of the top 5 players were from the Big 10.


Great example of how poorly these players are scouted lol.

[BamaCommando]

OUCH! Clay Travis slashed UT in his article about the Conference shifts yesterday:
http://ncaafootball.fanhouse.com/201...sms_ss=twitter

Just a couple more months and it begins again!

[Zeus]

DAAAAAAAAYUMMMM Junkie.


Whats goin on over there at UGA???


DUI, and cheating on his wife???

[Zeus]

.

[GatorBlue371]

You guys really blowin up this thread huh.

[PQ]

The spammer killed the thread.

[CamaroSkooter]

There was already a thread for this?! How the *bleep* did I miss this?!

It's 2:45 and OU STILL SUCKS!!!