I have seen some great players come through NCAA Football,
but I am talking about the best of the best.
To understand the generation I am talking about, I will say that the
likes of Emmitt Smith, Barry Sanders, OJ, Earl Campbell, Elway and some others
are not people I actually watched play in college football, so keep that in
mind when reading this list.
The average person just assumes if someone is great in the
NFL, that they were great in college and on the other side, if they are average
in the NFL, then they were average in college.
That could not be more wrong. It
bothers me when I hear people talking about how great someone was in college,
just because they are good in the NFL, so their college experience gets
exaggerated. Take Peyton Manning for
example, he never won the championship, never won the SEC,
and even more, he never beat his rival, Florida. They year after he graduated, Tennessee
went undefeated and won the national championship. All that being said, people talk about Peyton
like he was The Natural all through college.
For me, it has always been difficult to compare great
football players, because each position is so different and as a player you can
be great in so many ways. I have seen so
many great players, and even as I type this list up, I am not questioning who I
have on the list, more so the omission of others. My top 10 consists of 6 qb’s, 2 rb’s, a wr
and a db. There are about 8 linebackers,
3-4 DT’s, 3 OL, 3 corners, and numerous rb’s( think Faulk, LT, Peterson etc)
that I could have on this list, but again to me, this is about being the best
of the best( can you tell I watched Top Gun this weekend?
A great quarterback obviously has all the physical traits it
takes to play the position, but he also possess things you can not teach. The ability to win any under circumstance,
the ability to take a team and put them on your back and will them to victory. In no order, 6 of the greatest NCAA players I
have ever seen are; Danny Wuerffel, Tim Tebow, Vince Young, Charlie Ward, Mike
Vick, and Matt Leinart. These
quarterbacks were a combined 175-20-1 with 3 of those losses coming in a
head-to-head match up. Going to Virginia
Tech when I did, I got to see Vick in person.
I have never seen a player take over and control a game the way he
did. Say what you will about his
off-field actions( this is about pure football talent), and judge him for that
as a man, but as a player, there is no way you can deny he is one of the best
talents to ever play at the NCAA level.
Many people have their own list, and I am sure most of these guys are on
that list. I would bet money, that
Wuerffel gets left off most of those list.
Many forget, mainly because of his awful NFL career, how dominant he was
in college. He lost 6 games in 4
years. He had the ability, no matter
what the situation and who the opponent was, to be able to dominate the
game. The Rose bowl game between Young
and Leinart is the best football game I ever seen. Yes, there were NFL players all over the field,
but that made it even better of a game to watch. Think of all the linebackers and D-lineman
that were in that game and made it to the NFL, yet Young and Leinart went blow
for blow, and showed the nation, that they were in fact 2 of the greatest college
quarterbacks of all time. I can
understand if people are not that high on Leinart due to the fact that he
played with other great college players on that offense, but I strongly believe
that he was still the best or 2nd best( teaser alert!!!) player on
that great mini dynasty that USC had during
his time there.
That leaves us with the other 4 players on my list. Reggie Bush, Peter Warrick, Charles Woodson,
and Randy Moss. I struggled putting Moss
on here because of the teams he went against day to day ( same struggle I had
with LT, Faulk, and Kellen Moore), but at the end, the things he did on the
field, led him to sneak into my top 10.
As I have Leinart and Vick on my list also, Bush and Warrick correlate with
both of them. Bush was on that USC
team with Leinart and others. Bush got
me to watch every single USC game, because I
knew that every time he touched the ball it could be the best play I have ever
seen. He had a game against Fresno
St. one night that supplanted him in my eyes as
one of the best I had ever seen( 513 all purpose yards). It wasn’t just the yards gained, it was the
way he gained them. I do not care about
how he is doing in the NFL or what celebrity he is dating or has dated( he is
not hurting in that dept). As I
mentioned, I went to VT when Vick was there, and I saw first hand all of his
games. I watched the National
Championship game in 2000 when it was Vt vs. FSU. Peter Warrick was hands down the best player
on the field and Vick was not even close.
Warrick was a highlight machine during his career and has the stats to
back it up, but watching that game up close cemented for me Warrick’s spot on
my list.
Each year that gets played, I see great people. I am still waiting for that next great player
to come along and earn a spot on my best of the best list. So far, no one is coming close with their
college career to even be in the conversation.
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