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The problem with the Obvious Awards is that it wasn't a majority, it was a landslide. Every single slot but one was filled with a BCS player save Colt Brennan of Hawaii, who had about a million TD passes last year.

Watch the NFL draft next year and see if every single pick but one comes from a BCS school.

With 30 of 32 picks in the first round coming by way of BCS, I think one could make the argument they play a significant role.

I look at his list, and it's pretty much spot on. What changes would you have made?

Columbus_Zak wrote:With 30 of 32 picks in the first round coming by way of BCS, I think one could make the argument they play a significant role.

I look at his list, and it's pretty much spot on. What changes would you have made?

Well, I didn't call them the Obvious Awards for nothing. You could take twenty minutes skimming through the pre-season magazines and come up with comparable selections. I'm not in the business of coming out with cutsie little grocery lists myself.

Also, I never said BCS players didn't play a significant role. With operating and recruiting budgets 10+ times that of their IA brethren, one would hope that they'd secure some top shelf talent. However, the NFL draft has over 200 positions, and amazingly, 199 aren't from the BCS.

Herbie is indeed a legend...at overrating teams from the Big 10.

Columbus_Zak wrote:With 30 of 32 picks in the first round coming by way of BCS, I think one could make the argument they play a significant role.

I look at his list, and it's pretty much spot on. What changes would you have made?

Ben Roethlisberger at QB. Even this long after his graduation, his legend continues....wait, I'm from Findlay. Sorry about that, I've had Big Bend pounded into my head, he is the only football player I am able to think of.

OK, I'll bite ...

First off, JoeFalcon is right. It looks like Herbie wrote this off the top of his head.

Second, under "Players Who Don't Get Enough Respect" don't you think you'd include at least one non-BCS conference player, since they are the very definition of not enough respect?

How about the moving up/down category?

At the very least, take an extra five seconds and create a ghetto - best non-BCS players. That way you're at least admitting that you're not considering them for the other categories. Would it have been that hard?

Selfishly, I'm disappointed that BG didn't make the top 10 Gameday locations. Would've been nice to give a nod to one of the small venues Corso & Company have set foot on. And by all accounts, they came away impressed by what they saw.

That being said, I like Herbie on ESPN. Heck, I like Corso, too.

Here's a change: Moving up- Temple. If they win 3-4 games they'll more than likely move up more than Alabama, depending on what "moving up" means. Another example-impact Freshmen-last year Barry Church was a big time recruit who ended up as a Frosh All-American. Might have been included last year- there are no doubt some that could be included this year. Given that the MAC has had several QBs drafted in the Top six or seven QBs in the last few years and given that the CMU and Ball State guy are pretty highly regarded after last year you could argue that one of them would make the QB list. If anyone thinks that the top ten or so draftees by POSITON will include nothing but BS players they know even less than I do about football. If someone gave me good money to be lazy and rehash stuff someone stole from someone who did minimal research consisting of looking at BCS media guides because they're most available, I'd take the money and run, too. Actually l wouldn't because I care about quality and fear retribution, but I could if I wanted to.

I like Herbstreit a lot and I think he does a great job on ESPN and on the radio here in Columbus. One thing I don't really like is his lack of respect for the mid-majors. Why couldn't he have added a category for best mid-major players? best mid-major coaches? best mid-major gameday atmosphere? I think one issue is he is paid to cover the major programs and games between the BCS programs, so he probably doesn't pay as much attention to the "little" guys as we would like.

Face it, if mid-majors could get people to come out and watch their teams, a lot of these issues would go away...

CapitalFalcon wrote:Face it, if mid-majors could get people to come out and watch their teams, a lot of these issues would go away...

I agree.

While it would be nice if he touched on mid-majors, I don't blame him for not doing so. He's in the business of writing what most people are interested in reading about, and many more people care about the BCS schools than they do MAC's and WAC's and other smaller programs.

Moreover, I would prefer to see the nonBCS conferences completely glossed over, as is the case in this article, than adding token categories for them. Having a category for "Best Mid-major QB" or "Best Mid-Major players you don't know" just further perpetuates the idea that we are not playing the same game as the big boys. When we have players good enough to be mentioned in the top tier of their position, they get mentioned (Colt Brennan). Where we don't, they don't get mentioned.

If we want to correct that, then we should get better player.

As mentioned, as well, if we got better attendance/TV ratings Herby would go more out of his way to mention them...it would get readers.