Some of you in this thread don't get it. The reason why so many people are up in arms about Reggie Bush is not that the fact he is a great player. We all know he is an outstanding player. It's the fact the media thinks he is the best player on the face of the earth, all because of Fresno State and his "513 all purpose yards." At least 100 of those were on kickoff returns which should be factored in, but isn't by the media. To take that a step further, the media has been influencing the heisman race ever since that game. That is why Longhorns like myself are ticked off at the process. Vince had his own 500 yard game, without the added bonus of kick/punt return yards. It was against Oklahoma State, one of the few games we needed him past the first drive of the 3rd quarter. Yet, everyone has forgotten about that game and anointed Bush the best college football player ever. Heck, Darren Woodson has this insane notion that Bush would be the best running back in the NFL right now. "He's the best player in football," said former Cowboys safety Darren Woodson said after watching the USC-Arizona State game from the sideline. "He's the best player -- college or pro."-this from a Nov 25 article on cnnsi.com. The media hype around Reggie far exceeds anything for Vince, and it started after the Fresno game. Except nobody wanted to mention that Fresno lost to Nevada and Louisiana Tech since then, or they made the excuse the SC game spent them. Why? Because it would devalue Reggie's performance. Furthermore, I think it is a very valid question why Reggie Bush isn't the feature back at USC if he is "the greatest college football player ever" as some have chosen to anoint him. In fact, it's a valid question to ask if a RB who split carries evenly with another RB on his team and had less TD's than said teammate deserves the Heisman trophy over an equally deserving candidate who had no such issue. Plus, another valid issue is Reggie played well into the 2nd half in the vast majority of his games, while that article above illustrated that Vince did that only 3 times. Imagine the stats Vince lost because we blew out so many teams. He could have had another 3 or 4 TD's saturday if we didn't care about him staying healthy for the bigger prize(a national title) or embarrassing our opponent any worse. The bottom line is nobody disagrees that Bush isn't a great player. We disagree with the media influence the last month for Bush, especially when Vince had an equal or better game than that earlier in the season and they are glossing over that fact.
Vince doesn't play in the 2nd half of games, and is almost never seen in the 4th quarter of games. The only games I saw Vince play in the 4th quarter was: Ohio St., Oklahoma St., and A&M. The games have been blowouts and there was no need for him in the games. Look at the numbers in the last game of the season (the most important game for Heisman voters) for both Young and Bush. Young didn't play a single down after the first series in the 3rd quarter vs. CO, even then, he only passed once in that series. Bush on the other hand, had his highest number of carries for the season in the blowout vs. UCLA. He had his second highest number of carries the game before that. I'm not saying anything is wrong with that, but when it's crunchtime for Heisman voters, Bush really showcased his stuff, but he also had a lot more chances to do so. I am somewhat suprised at Young's comments though, he usually isn't the type of guy to try to plead his case. I think the problem is that you started a thread knowing it was going to start arguments (even though you said it wasn't your intention) and when someone disagrees with you, you get upset over it. You said its not suppose to be a Young bashing thread, but then you post that you think he's overrated. At least your not like Bigtexx, who comes in threads, gets owned, and then never shows his face again.
Then allow me to END the discussion right here and now: Posted before... From an interview with Matt Miller of NFL Draft Blitz (12/1/05): There you have it. To paraphrase you: "I don't think he should have brought Vince into the discussion." So, both Vince and Reggie have brought each other's name up without provocation. What exactly is the problem again?
Oh, and BTW, I've been looking at Heisman stats for Ron Dayne (1999), Eddie George (1995), and Rashaan Salaam (1994), the past RB Heisman winners. Using the projected stats from ESPN, Bush will finish lower than every one of them in both rushing yards and TDs. Vince is on pace to finish with greater passing yards and equal TDs (and admittedly more INTs) than Matt Leinart did from last year's Heisman campaign. And that's without factoring in the 850 yards rushing.
I honestly didn't intend to start a Young/Bush discussion because that thread already came and went. I did figure it might spark some interesting discussion about the quote (I wanted to know how Ut fans felt about it). A lot of UT fans were debating with me that Vince didn't care about the Heisman (which didn't make sense because we all know that the players care) but they were so convinced all he cared about was winning that i wanted to see their response when they found out that was not entirely the case. I don't get upset with disagreements, just when people twist my words or say I hate Young or UT when I don't. That' frustrating when someone is saying "Oh, you're just a UT hater or a Young hater" and they use that as basis for their argument when it isn't the case. I actually explained what i meant by overrated somewhere in this thread. It's not that i don't think he's good and that he had a great season, it's how good i keep hearing some people make him. That's where the overrated thing comes into play. Personally, I think Reggie Bush is a better football player and a more deserving candidate. I think Young should finish second. I think Young has had more chances to showcase himself against weaker competition. I don't think Vince should have brought Reggie's name up. I'm not taking anything away from Young's or UT's season. If they win, I promise i will stand here and eat my crow.
I'll throw my 2cents in on this one because I also mentioned that Vince shouldn't have brought Reggie Bush's name up in his "argument". If what the original poster said is true, as far as what was said in the original argument, then it sounds like Vince listed of qualities that he thinks he has and then says Reggie is nothing but a highlight and doesn't have any of those same qualities, but he is a good player nonetheless. Reggie just simply acknowledged that Vince was also a good player along with himself, nothing more, nothing less. In my original post I said that there should be no problem with Young arguing his case for Heisman, but in my opinion, it would be better done without bringing up another playing or downgrading that player's abilities. I think we all might be able to agree that the necessary qualifications for the Heisman need to be more definitively decided upon. Right now it goes to the "best player in college football". Does that mean best stat-wise? If this is the case, then Vince being taken out of games before the 4th quarter would certainly hurt him. Should the trophy be for the player with the best talent and skills? The race then becomes more even, with Vince probably taking the trophy because of his blend of size, speed, leadership, and poise - a total package we haven't exactly seen from Bush yet. However, if this criteria is chosen upon, then it allows players' without shattering stats to be in the race based off of their talents and abilities. Should it be based on career accomplishments? Maybe Leinart deserves more of a look if they go with this criteria. Should the candidates' respective team records be taken into consideration? Certainly it is possible to be the best college football player (on offense in this example), but not have a strong enough defense to compete for a championship. Something has got to be figured out or else bias of some form is going to affect who the trophy goes to for many more years. *this message was brought to you by a college football fan that has no bias for/against Texas, USC, Vince Young, Reggie Bush, or any of their affiliates and proprietaries therein.
This certainly has some merit, but it would also be advantageous to see what those three running backs had in the form of receiving yards/tds and returning yards/tds. It could be possible that Bush is getting as big of a look as the aforementioned RBs because he cog in the USC machine that affects multiple phases of offense, rather than just rushing.
This thread could've gone so much better save for a few things. 1) UT Running up the score comments - we don't. We try really hard not to. We may even disadvantage ourselves not to(our backup has literally no experiance running the offense at all, save handoffs). Saying we do possibly indicates either a lack of knowledge about UT football, or a bias. 2) Reading way too much into Young's comments. You really had to streatch to get something even mildly disparaging about Bush from Young's comments - but you went ahead and did it anyway. Remarkable flexibility, I must say. 3) "OMG, U disagree wit me, u stupid and biased. wtf!!!111" - Generally, not a retort that will engender quality discussion about the topic two people disagree upon. For examples, see the D&D, where this tactic is used to great aplomb to derail discussions.
OMG!! bigtexx made another appearance after getting owned in another pointless rant. Haha, nice find, I had a couple minutes between studying for finals, not a whole lot of time to proofread. Shouldn't you be defending Graham? I mean, you mentioned something about him owning Augie, how did that turn out?
The UT offense averaged 50 ppg. What more do you want? Vince's main problem is that the UT defense only allowed 14 ppg.
They are also Rocket "insiders" giving us injury & workout reports. So them being the same person is a good observation.
Between begging for the Heisman and saying his team is 'gangsta', it's been a great quote week for VY.
