If there were any justice in this world, every team would negatively recruit against Ohio State by pointing out that Urban Meyer doesn’t pretend to prepare his players for the NFL and have it work.
In the meantime, I’ll just shake my head over the claim that P5 football isn’t semi-professional. Is it different from the Sunday game? Sure, there’s less parity and Meyer is right about the difference between recruiting and drafting your talent.
But to make the argument on the day of college football’s first title game under a national playoff format that the difference between the two sports grows ever wider is laughably disingenuous.
Get The Picture 
If I’m CMR, Little Nicky, or any other coach for that matter, I show a QB recruit video of Tim Tebow as a high school player and then a video of him as a college senior. Then I ask them if he looks like he was coached to play the position a single day during his time in Gainesville. Then, say this is the guy Corch says is the GPOOE.
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What if you showed him the video of Tebow throwing a football as a senior in high school and said “Look at those awful mechanics! Can you believe I put him in position to win the heisman and become a first round draft pick?! All this guy can do is run the football”
Sometimes I feel like UGA fans are so disappointed in our own program that we will grasp at anything, and I mean ANYTHING, to make us feel better about UGA and convince ourselves we are somehow superior, even if it’s in the most trivial of ways.
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You don’t get my comment. Do I think Corch is a good corch? Yes, he’s one of the best in-game coaches in the game, but I don’t think he’s been terribly good at player development. Look at what happened in Gainesville after Mullen left. Let’s wait and see if he can keep it up when his OC heads off to Houston.
My point is that coaches who recruit against him should show that his ability to position players for the next level has not been very good over the long term.
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“his ability to position players for the next level has not been very good over the long term.”
I’d venture a guess that the 2008 Florida team had more future NFL players on it than nearly every other team of the past ten years
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You must think the cupboard was full when Agent Muschamp stepped into Gainesville in 2011.
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“If there were any justice in this world,” Corch would contract a loathsome disease
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^^^ This. I hope it is something they originally name “Super-Herpes”, but then gets named “Corch Simplex”.
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If that happens, Corch can just get the GPOOE™ to cure him with a simple touch.
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Hey Tebow, you’re working my side of the street.
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No. He would just have to touch the hem of His garment.
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“Spread offenses like Oregon’s use their best athlete at quarterback and rely on having more talented players than the opposition, much like the wishbone and option offenses of generations past”
I thought the option offense was used for the opposite reason.
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Meh, quarterback is the hardest position to make in the NFL due to the longevity of their careers and their lack of substitutions relative to other positions. Very few coaches can get a QB to the next level regardless of the system. Our pro style offense has the same number of QBs playing in the NFL as Meyer’s and Malzahn’s spread: one. Each one of them were superior QBs before they ever even stepped onto a college campus, too.
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Newton is one. The other?
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Alex Smith, straight from the article. Played for Meyer at Utah and is now starting QB for the Kansas City Chiefs
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He also was almost out of the game in SF. He finally got coached by Andy Reid.
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I don’t really know enough to argue one way or the other here. Sounds pretty subjective to me though and even if true, Urban Meyer still did enough to get him in position to succeed. After all, Aaron Murray worked with outside coaches during his time at UGA. Is that a knock against Bobo?
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Andy Reid is his coach in KC. He lost his job as a #1 overall pick to Kaepernick who was a mid-round pick in SF when Smith was a turnover machine. Reid got him for what amounted to nothing and resurrected the guy’s career.
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If you’re a great athlete with key exposure at your position, you can be a highly touted draftee, regardless of the system you play in (see Cam Newton). But no question there are players on the bubble that benefit greatly from spending college in a pro style offense. You really have to wonder what Aaron Murray would have been able to do in the NFL coming out of Meyer’s Florida or Malzahn’s Auburn offense (not that those were options exactly, just saying..). So some may not ‘need’ a pro style offense, but having one surely helps offensive players. If you are banking on not needing a pro style offense to prepare you, you better be a standout that people are willing to work on training.
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“You really have to wonder what Aaron Murray would have been able to do in the NFL coming out of Meyer’s Florida or Malzahn’s Auburn offense”
I hate to point this out because I’m a big AM11 fan, but you do realize that he didn’t even step on the field this past season, right?
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But at his height, he might not have been drafted as high–or at all really, were it not for his knowledge of the pro-style offense. Supposedly he and Stafford both crushed the white-board parts of their interviews with teams. I am not sure that any spread qb could do as well on that front–certainly none of Corch’s acolytes.
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“But at his height, he might not have been drafted as high–or at all really, were it not for his knowledge of the pro-style offense.”
He’s an inch taller than Manziel…
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…with just one less Heisman.
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I think Murray will be in the league long after Johnny Football–even if it is carrying a clipboard. Aaron Rogers didn’t “step on the field” right away either.
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Maybe so, but for right now there’s no distinguishable difference in how our “pro style” prepares QBs better for the league than other spread offenses. We can continue the debate once (or if) your projection comes to fruition.
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Maybe the comparison should extend to other positions. Surely a WR that is trained to run routes is more valuable than one that spent 3 or 4 years being trained to hold every play.
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You’re grasping at straws now.
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Not really–I like the pro-style offense. I believe that is what the majority of the NFL uses and if I had a kid that could play college ball, I would want him to play in and learn that offense. Running QBs get hurt more often. If their running ability is what separated them from a medium talent pro-style qb and suddenly they can’t run as well, they become that medium talent qb without the training of the other guy.
In college, Manziel and Griffin were faster than the defense. In the pros, the linebackers are just as fast. (And in the case of Johnny football they LBs want to knock the cocky out of him). I just think running a spread offense is short sighted.
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Ok, but what does any of that have to do with this comment of yours to which I was responding: “Surely a WR that is trained to run routes is more valuable than one that spent 3 or 4 years being trained to hold every play.”
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“if their running ability is what separated them from a medium talent pro-style qb and suddenly they can’t run as well, they become that medium talent qb without the training of the other guy.”
Did you ever consider that without their running ability they never would’ve had a shot at QB to start with?
Coaches win games by developing their players and putting them into position to win football games. I realize that’s not the same as developing them specifically for the next level, but the two will overlap often enough. 99% of the kids aren’t talented enough to play in the NFL anyway so why should a coach change his entire philosophy to fit the 1%?
In other words, let the kids have fun and utilize their talents to the best of their ability regardless of whether or not that will translate into a career in the NFL, because odds are they aren’t making it anyway.
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He (Manziel) was drafted by a dumpster fire of an organization that is desperate to create a buzz around the organization. The same organization that fired Bellichick and is on their something like 6th HC in 12 years there. Oh, their QB’s are horrible too. Nobody had Manziel going in the first round, yet Cleveland fell for his shtick and took him anyway.
And there’s an old saying in the NFL when it comes to drafting QB’s: if no matter how good/bad he is, if you use a first round pick on him, you better play him.
Manziel will never be a consistent starting QB in the NFL. Think Matt Leinart from USC.
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Hate to say it–I think Shaw is their best one.
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“Nobody had Manziel going in the first round…”
Did anybody have him going higher than the 5th round?
Your position is interesting though: “the NFL favors QBs from pro-style offenses, except when they don’t in which case they are dumb and I’m smarter than them” 😉
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Yes, but Manziel was ZOMG!!!1!JFF!! Never mind that his best play was “run around until Mike Evans is only double covered and chuck it in his general direction.”
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ummmmm… ok?
Just because the whole “spread QBs are less prepared than pro-style offense QBs” shtick is silly and unfounded doesn’t mean I am personally a bigger fan of Manziel than Murray
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“Why Big-Time College Football Sucks”
Because it makes media stars out of gas bags like Dickhead?
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One of the reasons I’ll always love college over the pros is that there’s a certain regionalism to the majority of players that also translates to it’s fans sharing a common thread of a period of their lives going that particular school.
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Think Meyer is on point. Hard to believe the liberal Democratic yellow page NYTs has this article. But it shows how much Upper Manhattan to the DC Beltway [well all of the northeast] is out of touch with the rest of America.
Meyer like Richt recruits players for his system. Think not go back and read what he said about the OC and the OCL coaches hire. The players, the coaches, the systems, the schemes, and the passion of collegiate sports sets it apart from the NFL. Why do you see coaches moving back to the collegiate ranks. Nobody wants to coach on Sunday now. Nobody wants to watch football on Sunday. After all it has followed 2 days of football, Friday Night Lights and Game Day.
At the current rate the NFL will be eclipsed by the NCAA as far as viewers. I have not watched over one hour this season of NFL football. It is dull and boring to watch. The NFL has to pull from D1. It has no farm team like MLB. They can not afford farm teams.
But if those young men were in high schools that had grades 13 and 14, well CMR and Meyer would be coaching in high school. Only the physical and mental maturity of the kid separates high school from college. And high school football programs have moved their game closer to the collegiate level.
When the NYT runs a article like this, it should be a shot across the bow to the NFL…your game sucks.
But what Meyer is saying, I can possibly out recruit other programs, out coach other conferences, out coach other coaches and teams. His history may justify those feelings.
The most impressive D1 QB is Winston. And I’m not a fan, but the kid can damn throw a ball. Oregon may have beat the hell out of FSU this year, but FSU was NCs last year. Season come and go as do the players and coaches.
But NCAA D1 is slowly beating the hell out of the NFL.
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That is hilarious.
Seriously? I mean I love college football and tend to watch it more than the NFL, but the suggestion that it is anywhere close to the NFL on a viewership level is beyond absurd.
I’ll ignore the regular season since there is a case to be made for regionalism and the far greater number of college games vs the NFL. Let’s just look at the playoffs.
AFC/NFC Championship viewership: 50 million +
Rose/Sugar Bowl Viewership: ~28 million
Sure there is an argument to be made over broadcast viewership vs cable but the fact is the NFL is at least twice as popular as college football. Obviously the National Championship game numbers arent out, but I would be shocked if they topped 40 million viewers. The Super Bowl is well past 100 million.
Maybe the NFL isnt all consuming in Alabama or South Carolina or other states without a team, but the idea that it doesnt destroy college football in any meaningful metric is absurd.
The coaching front has become slightly more competitive given the TV contracts in college now, but a lot of that could have to do with culture and work life balance more than anything else.
Like him or not, there is a reason that Goodell can be paid at least 5x what the power 5 conference commissioners are paid combined.
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CUM is paid to win games in College….end of story..seems to he is pretty damn good at it.
We may not always like his ways, but he wins.
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Agree. I’ve always felt sos doesn’t give a damn whether his players went on to nfl careers. He’ll use em up while he’s got em. He ran Lattimore 30 or 40 times a game. And if a player holds back for any reason, like clowney did, he’s gonna have sos bitching at practice, in the locker room, at pressers, etc.
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I agree with lamontsanford Connor Shaw was a better QB, as far as QB skills Shaw was way ahead of johnnyfootballs, the media made him, and urbon crier is an ass clown to the nth degree, and peckerhead that is full of himself (s–t). If i owned anything that was Oregon, I would wear it tonight, because I can’t stand burbon liar. “GO DUCKS”, “GO DAWGS”
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Or we could positive recruit them by going on about how great and ground breaking and world turning Meyer and OSU are just because they won a football game against Alabama. Hehe
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If I didnt know any better I’d say this was a laughably bad media plant by the NCAA. I mean, the NYT isn’t the bastion of journalistic integrity it once was, but this is just…
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