Redundancy Defined

Darren McFadden on his rookie season in Oakland:

“I felt like overall it was a good year without the injuries,” McFadden said. “Other than the injuries I thought it was a good year for me overall.”

This makes D-Mac sound pretty foolish, but I blame the sportswriter for not editing the quote.

The Worst(ish) Day Of The Year

I am an incredibly gullible person. When I was in elementary school, I was the kid who would look outside when someone said, “It’s snowing!” in the middle of May. Since I’ve gotten older, things haven’t gotten any better.

Being gullible is bad enough on a regular day, but on April 1, when tons of people are focusing their energies on preying on the gullibility of others, it really really stinks.

And living in the 21st century, when millions of people have potential access to millions of other people via the internet, it just gets worse and worse.

Last year, I got duped by one of my friends who sent me an email saying that he and his wife were pregnant. Later I got really excited when I read on an Atlanta Braves blog that the Braves, who were desperate for a left fielder at the time, had managed to get Carl Crawford in a trade for practically nothing.

This year, April Fools’ Day caught me unawares yet again. This morning I was reading an Arkansas Razorbacks Message Board and was halfway convinced that Darren McFadden had re-enrolled in school at the University of Arkansas and was coming back for his senior season. Since then, I’ve twice clicked on a link that I thought looked interesting only to end up on YouTube watching a video of Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up (apparently this is a fairly popular prank).

April Fools’ Day will end for me in a little under nine hours. I can’t wait.

The Best Player In The Country

Tonight on ESPN, the winner of the 2007 Heisman Award will be revealed. Although four finalists were named, everyone knows that this is really a two horse race between Florida QB Tim Tebow and Arkansas RB Darren McFadden.

Make no mistake—Darren McFadden is the best player in the country, but due to the love fest that Tebow has received from the media all season long, I fear that D-Mac, the best player in college football for the last two years, will go home empty-handed again.

My thinking is supported by the results of two other Player of the Year Awards which were handed out on Thursday—the Maxwell Award, voted on by members of the media, went to Tebow while the Walter Camp Award, voted on by coaches (i.e. people who know what they’re talking about) went to McFadden.

Those who favor Tebow largely rely on three arguments to prove that he is superior to McFadden. Let’s examine them more closely.

“McFadden has a lot of talent, but he was inconsistent this year.”

This is the favorite argument of Mark May, ESPN “analyst” and President of the Tim Tebow Fan Club. Proponents of this argument are quick to point out that McFadden had three games this season where he didn’t rush for 100 yards. How can such a player expect to win the Heisman Award?

Against Auburn, the Auburn defense played incredibly well and keyed in on McFadden the whole game, holding him to 43 yards on 17 carries in a 9-7 Arkansas loss. It was a legitimately bad game for McFadden.

Against Florida International, McFadden ran for just 61 yards in a 58-10 Arkansas victory. Another bad game, right? Maybe, until you consider that Florida International turned the ball over so often that Arkansas was often starting possessions in the Red Zone—there just weren’t many yards available. McFadden also ran for 4 touchdowns in that game. 61 yards, 4 touchdowns; those are the kind of numbers that people are hailing as amazing from Tebow.

Against Mississippi State, McFadden ran for just 88 yards. The fact that he had a 57-yard touchdown reception (on a 5-yard pass) and also threw for a touchdown are generally forgotten about.

So while it’s true that McFadden had three games this season where he didn’t rush for 100+ yards, only one of them was actually a bad game. And having good games in 11 out of 12 isn’t inconsistent.

“Tebow has better numbers.”

Much has been made of the fact that Tebow became the first player in NCAA history this season to throw and run for 20+ touchdowns in the same season. A lot of people want to stop the argument right there: Tebow ran for more touchdowns than McFadden and threw 29 more, how can he not be the better player?

Well, if an 80-yard touchdown run and a 5-yard touchdown run are equally impressive, then maybe they have a point. But they’re not. And they don’t.

The vast majority of Tebow’s touchdowns came on short runs and short passes. Tebow broke runs of 20+ yards in four games. McFadden accomplished that feat in 10 games.

And while we’re at it, if we’re going to use statistics to reach bogus conclusions, let’s look at QB ratings: McFadden’s is 268.5 while Tebow’s is 177.8. Does that prove that McFadden is the better QB?

The “better numbers” argument is a bogus one.

“It shouldn’t matter what class the winner belongs to.”

The thinking here is that the Heisman Award should go to the best player in the country, regardless of his age. For what it’s worth, I entirely agree.

The problem is that McFadden was the best player in the country last season, but didn’t win the Heisman in large part due to the fact that he was just a sophomore, while winner Troy Smith was a senior.

My point is this: if McFadden was penalized last year for being a sophomore, Tebow should be penalized this year for being one. It just isn’t fair otherwise.


Tim Tebow will likely win the Heisman tonight, no matter what I say. But he still won’t be the best player in the country.

A Busy Few Days In The World Of Sports

I am supposed to be working on the second halves of other posts (and I am), but there have been several momentous developments in the world of sports, and I wanted to mention them briefly before they were all old news.

• Barry Bonds has been indicted on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. Apparently, the Federal Government is not convinced that Bonds told the truth when he claimed that he had never knowingly taken steroids. Go figure. Bonds could face up to 30 years in prison if convicted on all counts (no matter what, he won’t serve nearly that much time), so he’s facing some pretty serious charges.
  
• News reports have confirmed that Houston Nutt will not be back next season as the head football coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks. No one knows for sure yet if he is being let go, is stepping down on his own or is off to ruin someone else’s football program, but whatever the specifics, the majority of Arkansans will now have one more thing to be thankful about on Thursday.
  
• The Razorback Basketball team lost its first game under new head coach John Pelphrey yesterday, suffering a 16-point defeat at the hands of Providence at an early season tournament in Puerto Rico. The alarming thing is that the Hogs have committed 58 turnovers over the course of the last two games, which, outside of Junior High games, has got to be about the highest total I have ever heard.
  
• It looks like A-Rod will be a Yankee next year (and several years after that) after all. Rodriguez swallowed his pride a little and went back to the negotiation table, this time without agent Scott Boras. Analysts have surmised that Boras’ reputation will take a hit from this episode, which might be supported by the fact that Kenny Rogers has already fired him.
• Oregon QB and Heisman hopeful Dennis Dixon saw his season end Thursday night in the first quarter of his team’s loss to Arizona when he went down with an ACL tear. Dixon is another in a long line of Heisman candidates who have had disappointing seasons due to injury, inconsistent play, or being on a bad team. The injury will help out the chances of Arkansas’ Darren McFadden, but after another mixed performance today (D-Mac had a 50+ yard TD reception and threw for a score as well but ended up with less than 100 yards on the ground), it will probably take a huge game against LSU to give him the Heisman hardware.

There are probably a couple of other developments that I missed. I don’t remember the last time so many big sports stories broke at the same time.

An Update On The D-Mac-Mobile

Well, I saw that really ugly car again yesterday.

Fayetteville is a town of about 70,000, so seeing an unusual automobile isn’t quite like finding a needle in a haystack, but at the same time, seeing Darren McFadden cruising around in his “car” for the second time in less than a week after having never seen it before was a little surprising.

This time though, I saw him driving down a side road.

After that 17 carry, 43 yard Heisman-hopes-destroying performance he had in Arkansas’ anemic 9-7 loss to Auburn on Saturday, he may be trying to avoid attention.

Quite Possibly The Ugliest Car I Have Ever Seen

I was stopped at a traffic light with my dad yesterday when he pointed out an unusual car as it passed by.

We agreed that the Razorback red Ford Crown Victoria with 26” rims was hideous, and were wondering who would drive it, when suddenly my dad exclaimed, “Oh, it’s D-Mac’s!”

“D-Mac,” of course, being the nickname of the Arkansas Razorbacks’ superhuman, Heisman Trophy-favorite running back, Darren McFadden.

We then watched in amusement as D-Mac drove on in his Pimp My Ride version of a monster truck.

Darren McFadden is, by far, the best college player in the country, but his taste in automobiles leaves a little bit to be desired.

Alabama 41, Arkansas 38: A Few Observations

This was a tough game to watch if you were a Razorback fan. After falling behind 21-0, Arkansas stormed back to take a 38-31 lead in the fourth quarter before losing on a last second touchdown pass. A few thoughts on the game:

• It wouldn’t have seemed possible, but Arkansas’ secondary is actually worse than it was last year. How bad? Even Michael Vick could probably light this team up for 300 passing yards.

• Over the summer, Houston Nutt has apparently not developed the ability to call decent plays on offense. What? You thought the new Offensive Coordinator was going to get to make the calls? Yeah, he probably did too.

• As amazing as he is, Darren McFadden can’t win games for the Hogs all by himself. Against Alabama, he amassed 195 rushing yards, two touchdowns and a mild concussion, and it wasn’t enough. He can’t give much more than that.

And what about Mitch Mustain and Gus Malzahn, who were basically forced to walk the plank of a sinking ship back in January?

They’re doing okay.

Malzahn has watched his offense at Tulsa churn out 90 points and 1,118 net yards in two victories so far, while Mustain has watched from the sidelines as his top-ranked USC Trojans have ripped through their first two opponents.

Of course, in Mustain’s case, you could argue that he’d rather be playing than watching, but if you have to watch from the sidelines, you’d rather it be because you’re red-shirting, and not because your jerk of a head coach is playing an inferior player in your stead.