So after hearing Jesse Palmer on College Football Live this morning tell me his five invites to New York for the Heisman ceremony, and hearing that one of them is Tim Tebow with his no-better-than-mediocre numbers, his insanely low passing yards and the fact that his "all-purpose TD's" still don't add up to the number of rushing or passing TD's that some other QB's and RB's have, I decided to do some research.
As overrated and as overhyped as Tebow is, it really is not his fault. He is simply going out and playing football, he just happens to play for the University of Florida. If he played anywhere else, nobody would even notice his existence. First of all, as far as the Heisman invites go, these should be the 5 invited players (and these are their current statistics) in no particular order:
Case Keenum (Houston): 3,815 Passing Yards, 28 TDs, 71.0% Completion Percentage.
C.J. Spiller (Clemson): 739 Rushing Yards, 334 Receiving Yards, 11 TDs (5 Rushing, 3 Receiving, 3 Return), 199.8 All-Purpose Yards Per Game (10.1 Per Play),
Colt McCoy (Texas): 2,447 Passing Yards, 17 TDs, 72.9% Completion Percentage.
Mark Ingram (Alabama): 1,148 Rushing Yards, 11 TDs (8 Rushing, 3 Receiving), 6.6 Yards Per Carry
Jordan Shipley (Texas): 1,050 Receiving Yards, 6 Receiving TDs,
Compare these to Tim Tebow's statistics:
1,531 Yards, 20 TDs (9 rushing, 11 passing), 65.9% Completion Percentage.
Case Keenum has ridiculously high stats, far better than any other QB, and if he played in the SEC or the Big 12, he would automatically be hand-fed the Heisman. However, he does not, and there is still Heisman discussion. McCoy, in a different light, has better numbers than Tebow (see above), his team is in the Big 12, his team is undefeated, so basically he is in Tebow's exact position as far as the Heisman goes, except he has CLEARLY done better. So yeah, not quite getting why Tebow is in every conversation.
Anyway, on to the more interesting findings that I had when researching the history of UF Quarterbacks. Assuming Tebow is a huge bust in the NFL (which he will be), he will be up there with a bunch of other bust-out QB's from his college. All of these QB's were superstars at UF, leading them to winning seasons, SEC Championships, and in some cases, National Championships. Here are the ones that I found, working backwards:
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1.) Chris Leak. Declared for the 2007 draft, and went un-drafted. The Chicago Bears signed him after the draft, and he never took a snap during the regular season in the NFL. He was cut later in 2007 for Kyle Orton, and was never seen or heard from in the NFL again.
2.) Rex Grossman. Not as big of a bust, was an on-and-off Chicago Bears starter from 2004-2008. Heralded by Chicagoans at the beginning of his career as the "franchise QB," he was immediately shown to be incredibly fragile. He made the Super Bowl in 2006 (his one good season) and folded under the pressure. He has a career 6-8 record as a starter other than 2006. He was benched in 2008 and is currently the backup for the Houston Texans.
3.) Jesse Palmer. I'm only putting this piece of **** on this list because he got me fired up about it this morning. He was useless in Florida, where he was carried by his team to a decent career (alternating with Doug Johnson and Grossman) in college. He was drafted in 2001 by the New York Giants and spent 4 years as a backup. He was cut in 2005 and signed by the San Francisco 49ers, where he was a backup for a few months and then cut again. He played for Montreal in the CFL for a year before he retired.
3.) Danny Wuerffel. He won the Heisman Trophy in 1996, and looked the part of a winner. However, he wasn't drafted until the 4th round by the Saints, and had a bad start. In his first three years, he played in 16 total games and only won a few of them. He floated around the league, playing for Green Bay, Chicago (seems like all these pieces of **** end up with the Bears), and Washington. After 6 failing seasons, he called it quits and was never seen again in the NFL.
4.) Shane Matthews. He was, by a wide margin, the most successful of the overrated, overhyped Florida QB's. Ironically, he was the least-hyped QB in the last 20 years at Florida. He had a 14-year NFL career, starting in 1993 with (guess who??) the Chicago Bears and eventually as a backup in Washington and Buffalo. He retired a few years ago, and is now a celebrity and guest speaker-for-hire.
5.) Kerwin Bell. Drafted in 1988 after breaking many of his predecessor's SEC records (I'll get to his predecessor next). Bell actually did have a 100% completion percentage, as he took a grand total of 5 snaps in the NFL for the Indianapolis Colts in 1996. He was actually out of the league from 1989 until 1996. He was cut by the Colts in 1997 and hung up the cleats for good.
6.) Wayne Peace. This is, by far, my favorite former Florida QB to rip on. Wayne Peace set almost every passing record for the SEC in his four year Florida career. In 1982, his Gators (known as the Peace Corps back then) took down the seemingly-unstoppable Miami Hurricanes. He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated. He went undrafted in 1984, and never took a snap in the NFL. He did serve a year as a backup QB for the Cincinatti Bengals, but did not play. He is my favorite QB to rip on because part of my family lives in Lakeland, Florida. If you are in that suburb of Tampa Bay and driving down Florida Avenue, there is a good chance you will pass a big red-and-white sign that reads: "State Farm Insurance, Wayne Peace, Agent." It pretty much sums up the way Florida QB's careers end up going.
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There are others, such as John Reaves in the 1970's, but I think this is plenty enough to see how overrated and overhyped the University of Florida Quarterbacks are. I can't wait for Tebow to go to the NFL and get crushed every time he tries to run a naked bootleg. He's not even NEARLY as talented as some of the QB's on this list, and that's the saddest part. One day, we will all look back and laugh at how bad he did at the professional level.
