Irish's Quinn not quite ready for canonization
C'mon, be honest. You chuckled when you heard Notre Dame got beat by Michigan one cajillion billion to seven, didn't you?
You laughed. You giggled and burped. You frolicked around the house like you were being tickled on the feet by a supermodel in her skivvies.
You spit mustard and bratwurst all over your shirt when you saw Brady Quinn's face planted in the turf and throwing sloppy interceptions like Kerry Collins. I can tell you loved it. I still see the smirk cemented on your face.
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| Charlie Weis and Brady Quinn might not be to blame for their fame, but they have to take the heat. (AP) |
With that loss we did not just watch the elimination of the Irish from the national championship race, we watched Quinn enter a dangerous realm, that dark matter universe known as over-hyped.
Introducing Brady Quinn. Fine gentleman, future NFL quarterback, and the most outlandishly overrated player in the history of college football.
Don't move the cursor back. You read that right.
With so much hype, Quinn was set up for a fall. There was no way he could live up to all of the snapshots and profiles and almost Biblical testimony from coaches and players that Quinn was going to be a combination of John F. Kennedy, Michael Jordan, John the Baptist and Alexander the Great.
No college football player has ever had this kind of setup: a state run television network, NBCPravda, and a general media that still continues to offer almost no critical analysis of his play, just promotion, month after month, week after week, day after day. The only magazine cover Quinn did not grace was Playgirl.
The effect of such stupendous publicity was almost hypnotic.
Until now no one has ceased their swooning and paused to think: maybe this guy is good, but not as super-good as we have constantly been told? Maybe players like Chris Leak from Florida and Troy Smith from Ohio State are just as talented college quarterbacks and deserve just as much Heisman hype?
If I ask who the best college quarterback in the nation is right now and you answer Quinn and not Smith, then you are a brainwashed fool.
Have we been sold a bill of goods when it comes to Quinn, bamboozled by the bright lights, and did the Wolverines expose Quinn, who threw a handful of big interceptions this weekend, as something other than otherworldly?
