Shawn King on Terrelle Pryor
Did anyone else see Shawn King talk about Terrelle Pryor today on ESPN? It was ridiculous. The question was along thte lines of "How good will Terrelle Pryor be this year?" King proceeds to lose it and same that Terrelle is going to be the best QB of all-time. I am not exaggerating, he said best ever and proceeded to repeat himself when asked about Tebow. OK, he's good, but it's a tad outrageous to say all-time when he didn't even have the best freshman campaign with an extremely talented team. I was just dumbfounded listening to how adamant he was.
I caught the OSU spring game on BTN and he looked pretty good. Not that it makes him even close to being one of the best ever but i think he will go from a decent freshman year to an above average sophomore year.
No, but on college football live, they said that tUoO$ would win the big ten. I really hope they get knocked off, preferably by us. God that would be amazing wouldn't it? Our frosh QB showing up TP? And the defense using TP to whipe their butts? I can see it now...
Edit: I am Boubacar Cissoko I need TP for my bunghole!
Just another terrible sports-journalism trend, whereby everything is "the biggest/most/greatest/fastest/strongest _____ in the history of college football." Why not let things be, and praise the noteworthy aspects of each phenomenon in turn?
I'm skeptical that it really sells more copy to speculate that Pryor is going to be the "greatest person to play that position in the history of EVAR" than to say "when he matures he will remind us of Vince Young and Michael Vick."
But nobody can resist. Thus Oklahoma vs. Florida just had to be "the greatest offense in the history of college football" [even though it was a pass-only field-spreader with a middling run-game] matched up against "the most dominant defense in the SEC" [when 'bamas was probably more talented, Spikes being the exception]. I dunno.
It's the offseason, and I forgive King for trying to make some sort of a definitive statement. But how about sticking with the Xs and Os, in the realm of the concrete?
all journalism has that same problem, as in, this ___ epidemic/ recall... is the largest/ worst ever, or this storm is the strongest ever...
Right on the money and a great reason to never watch the news at all.
I would contest that DeMarco Murry, Chris Brown, even Moses Madu played really well for Oklahoma. Their "middling run-game" was actually very good, they ran a ton if you watched their games. They won't be as good this year because they lost one of the best lines in school history.
I watched their games, and for the first part of the season Oklahoma did have quite a strong rushing attack; even if one keeps the Big 12's weak defenses in mind, overall in 2008 I think they still had the #3 passing offense in the country and the #20 rushing offense.
All I was trying to point out was that one could do what I just did -- name names and put numbers on the table -- instead of insisting with Mark Mays and whoever else that the Sooner offense was 'the best in the history of college football,' which is a statement that it only vaguely makes sense to make. Just the hyperbole bugged me.
No I agree, their offense was maybe (probably) the best in the country, but losing to Florida like that shows that they were not. Some of that could be attributed to over-hype of the Big Twelve South and their bowl record showed that. (1-3, almost lost to Ohio State.) Still Oklahoma's offense was tremendous, maybe top ten all time. I doubt anyone could prove it though.
I just watched it. It was pretty over the top. He said that Pryor is better than Tebow because he's bigger and faster. Now, I get disgusted by all the Tebow blowing like everyone else, but this is a ridiculous statement.
There is also a Pryor-Herbstreit interview on ESPN on the college football page. In it he says that Michigan players have sent him e-mails saying that he can't make all the throws. Not to say it is true but it is interesting none the less.
let's assume Michigan players really did send him those emails. it's true, he CAN'T make all the throws. can he occasionally put the ball where it needs to be in traffic? sure. is he a better passer than he was last year? it'd be hard not to be. that being said, he's still not a great passer. i watched their spring game, he still floats his deep balls and needs his receivers to be WIDE open. he doesn't need to be a great passer considering how athletic he is but he's not and likely never will be a great passer.
*sorry that got kinda long, for the record i don't think any Michigan players actually emailed him.
only connection I could see TP have is to previous M player (his cousin) Toney Clemons.
agree about Pryor's passing, add to the fact that there have been reports that he's been slow in picking up all his responsibilities in the offense
Disregard
As far as being the best college QB ever, I think he has a ton of work ahead of him. Pryor is not even the best in the Big Ten yet.
In the Big Ten last year Pryor finished behind 4 other league QBs in total yardage, all of which return in 2009, namely:
Adam Weber, Minnesota
Darryl Clark, Penn State
Ricky Stanzi, Iowa
Dustin Sherer, Wisconsin
Pryor did finish second behind Weber in passing completion % at 60.1%.
It's not that Pryor isn't talented. He is. It's just he's never going to be Sam Bradford, Colt Brennan, Timmy Chang, David Klingler, B.J. Symons, Graham Harrell - great. Pryor will be more of Tommy Frazier, Troy Smith, Tim Tebowish-great.
There's a difference. But then again, is there really a difference?
Also - for somebody who played for Rod at Tulane, King wasn't especially supportive or optimistic about M's next season in the segment that followed his Terrelle Pryor outburst.
We are coming off of the worst season in history, starting a freshman quarterback, and we lost 3/4 of the only part of our defense that was good last year (the DL). Remind me again why a talking head at the WWL should be optimistic about our team heading into summer workouts.
we haz Barwis?
dugg for lolcatz
If you are looking for objective, competent journalism, you might not want to tune into any ESPN program. There was an article some time ago where a blog interviewed John Kruk and he said that before they have various segments on Baseball Tonight, everyone would sit around and "pick" a team or angle that they would push, even if they really did not believe it. Controversy and hyperbole-laced proclamations sell, so I'm not surprised to see a decent college QB (and a failed pro QB) make grandiose claims about the "best" QBs EVAR because he knows that people will flock to the Internets and complain, which will at least put his name out there. I call it the Drew Sharp Effect - being a court jester may mean you act like an idiot, but at least everyone is paying attention to you.
I do find it funny that both Tebow and Pryor are being touted so highly considering they are not even the best QBs this year (Brafford and McCoy are heads-and-tails better than either of those players).
"Brafford [SIC] and McCoy are heads-and-tails better than either of those players."
If by this statement, you're devilishly pulling the kind of Kruk/ESPN infotainment ploy you reference in your post, forgive the following. If not ...
I don't think you'll get much argument regarding Pryor, but Tebow? Projecting to the NFL, he may not be the better prospect. But if the question is who is the best QB at the college level, bring the evidence there's some kind of "head-and-tails" (or "shoulders" even) difference between Tebow and the 2 Big 12 QBs. You are kidding, right? I mean, the deification of the kid aside (which, admittedly is annoying), the statement seems to imply that if they all played on the same team, Tebow would obviously be 3rd string and the gap he'd have to make up just to make it to the two deep would be significant.
And I thought he should of been fired. For a guy who has a ton of fundamental problems, not to mention of attitude issues, I think its ridiculous to predict the BEST EVER at this point. Like Bronxblue just pointed out, hes not even close to the best qb this year.
TP will be the best QB ever if he does things no one else has done before ON THE FIELD. So, starting this year he must take OSU to an undefeated season, bring them an NC and win the Heisman Trophy by putting up mind numbing stats. Then he has to repeat that his Jr and Sr years assuming he stays all four years.
As for how he did in his Spring game where OSU played each other, you might want to take his performance with a grain of salt.
One thing is for sure, he needs to see a dermatologist for his acne break out. Is it due to natural occurring hormones or the ones being given to him by those shady scumbags that hang around the OSU football team?