The problem with some lists is semantics.
Take SI.com’s Austin Murphy’s list of the ten most thrilling players in college football history. They’re all great players, but when I think of thrilling, I think of guys who you make you hold your breath when they touch the ball or line up to make a play. No knock on Tebow, who may very well be the SEC player of this decade, but he doesn’t hold a candle in this department to Darren McFadden (or Percy Harvin, for that matter). And how do you leave off players like Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson?
And what to make of this list of the SEC’s most powerful people from the Orlando Sentinel? Paul Finebaum wields more power than any AD in the conference except Jeremy Foley and more power than every school president in the conference? If you’re going to argue that outsiders like Sexton and Glazer have the goods (Sexton clearly does) how do you turn around and leave off the folks at CBS and ESPN who sign the checks (and in the case of the latter, actually broker games) for those obscene TV deals?
And don’t even get me started with number 20 on that list.
Power? In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Get The Picture 
“17. Billy Donovan, Florida men’s basketball coach”
Number of SEC titles since 2007:
Billy Donovan: 0
Dennis Felton: 1
Number of NCAA appearances since 2007:
Billy Donovan: 0
Me: 0
Dennis Felton: 1
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lol
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Billy Donovan vs. Pete Hermann: 0-1
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Greatest of “all time” is just too difficut given the difficulty of judging pre WWL teams.
As for the SEC, I would have put Rogers Redding in there. Is there a list the Teapot doesn’t make?
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That SEC Power Playa list is a joke, right? The idea that a player, even the GPOOER, is more powerful than Sexton, Bryant, Jr., or any other booster is laughable. The only way Tebow can exert power on the SEC is not to play. Sexton and the boosters can ruin your athletic budget.
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Someone please explain why Saban is perceived to be so damn powerful?
He has one NC to his credit, a failed stint at Miami, and has never had a team win 10 games in consecutive years.
Simply – his record does not merit “power”.
He makes a ton of cash and has elevated Bama’s program but what else? He can recuit and coach well but better than Richt? Or the hat?
I believe his cold demeanor and personality suggests a Stalinesque elevation, but to whom and what does Nick Saban hold power over?
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“Ai-igth, for starters everybody in Alabama including Finebaum and excluding the dwindling few that remain as the Auburners.
Take a guy like Tuberville. He beats Alabama for six in a row with five of those happening before I descended onto Tuscaloosa. I lose one to him then I beat him once and Auburn fires him for $5,000,000.00. Granted that may have had something to do with the toxic relationship already in the Plains when I was still with the Dolphins or the fact that Tuberville and I have the same agent.
Also beat Sylvester and Phil last season and they too are out of a job. Ai-ight.”
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lmao
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Apparently “powerful” means whoever the media’s most fixated on. I don’t live in the South, so the Finebaum thing is beyond me. Who’s he gotten hired, fired, recruited, etc.? Other than riling up Alabamians with nothing better to do, I fail to grasp this person’s influence.
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Who has Finebaum hired and fired? Saban, Shula, and Tubbs.
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Oh and if there’s been a more thrilling college football player than Mick Vick, then I haven’t seen him. And, yes, I am too young to have seen Herschel live.
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I will have zero credibility as a UGA fan regarding the “thrill” list because naturally it is assumed that no Dawg fan can be objective when discussions of Herschel Walker is involved, but HW was the best, most exciting CFB player I have ever seen (and he would have been even if he played for other teams.)
Setting aside the fact I think he should be number 1, how in the hell can Butkus be considered “thrilling”? Hell of a LB, but not anywhere near my Top 10. Reggie Bush was far more exciting than Earl Campbell, and so was Bo Jackson.
Pat White was more exciting than Vince Young to me, and for a longer time. Young had one big year and his play in one specific game has inflated people’s perception of him. I know these lists are easy to criticize and designed to get people arguing, but this one is just not well thought out (or perhaps titled. You get one set of names for the 10 best, and a different one for the 10 most thrilling.) Doug Flutie, good and gutty player, is another example of a single game distorting the perception of his entire body of work. Where are the receivers/return men?
The SEC Power list may be worst, but you guys are already hammering that one. Girls BB coach, lol.
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I’d like to se someone do a study: What drives more traffic, a good list on the Internet, or a stupid one?
My money is on stupid, pretty much every time.
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Bet Leeburn’s tokin’ a mighty big stogie after coming in ahead of Lowder. Guess that Chizik that hit the fan still permeates odoriferously.
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What kills me about a list like the thrill list is, how can you make a list of the most thrilling football players of all time and then proceed to put players on there that you have never seen play and that there are only a few grainy black and white videos of. ie: Doc Blanchard,Glenn Davis, and Red Grange.
Also agree with the Flutie comment, without that pass he is not on this list nor does he win the Heisman. I don’t think there as ever been one play that defined or made a career like that one play did.
On another note, this fascination with the Tebow jump pass is hilarious. Go outside, jump in the air and throw the football ten yards. We can all do this, yet is is beyond over hyped.
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Love to hear Michael Adams’ comment on the position of Leeburn on the list.
And to TomReagan: So…Tom, you actually believe a hack newspaper columnist got these coaches fired?
Finebaum is trying to text you…he wants to take you to dinner.
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