Tebow!

Now that I’ve gotten your attention, here are some interesting facts and absurd stories accompanying Tebow Mania.

• Everyone knows he’s gone 7-1, but his stats (10 passing tds, 2 ints, 517 rushing yards, 3 rushing tds) compare favorably to other hot QBs, Rodgers (8-0, 25 tds, 4 ints), Brady (6-2, 19, 5), Big Ben (7-1, 13, 5) and Brees (6-2, 20, 6).
• Tebow’s stats through three quarters: 38% completion, 4.7 yards an attempt, 5 passing tds, 301 rushing yards, 1 rushing td. In the 4^th q/OT: 61%, 8.9 yards an attempt, 6 passing tds, 216 rushing yards, 2 rushing tds.
• Tebowing (pictured above) is now an official word.
• Tebow’s pastor says they are winning because God is on their side.
• You can get Tebow Christmas cards on ebay.
• He is getting MVP consideration.
• “Tim Tebow” gets 194 million Google hits, compared to 11 million for undefeated Super Bowl MVP Aaron Rodgers, 11 million for injured Peyton Manning, 48 mil for Lebron James, and 68 mil for Tiger Woods. At least the other Golden Boy Tom Brady is almost half, at 81 million.
• Speaking of Brady, the Patriots are the next team to try to stop Tebow Time. New England has the worst ranked defense in the league, so if the Broncos can somehow contain the Patriot offense, Denver fans’ prayers could continue to be answered.
• Lastly, no one seems to have noticed that the Packers are undefeated at 13-0 while the Colts are 0-13. Hello!

Super Bowl College Quarterbacks?

Leading up to Super Bowl Sunday obviously a lot of attention this week will be focused on the two star quarterbacks, Ben Roethlisberger and Aaron Rodgers. Oddly enough, their respective alma maters are not big college football powerhouses. Big Ben went to Miami of Ohio, in the non-BCS MAC, while Rodgers graduated from Cal, which is in the more heralded PAC-10, but is not considering a football factory like USC. This got me thinking, how do other Super Bowl quarterbacks and college programs compare?

Of the 90 Super Bowl quarterback starts, only 41 different schools are represented. Stanford and Notre Dame lead the way with seven, helped by five from Elway and four from Montana. Four programs share the tie for three different quarterbacks, with Alabama (Namath, Starr, Stabler), Purdue (Dawson, Greise, Brees), and Notre Dame (Montana, Lamonica, Theismann) looking more impressive than Cal (Kapp, Morton, Rodgers). Roethlisberger’s Miami Redhawks would be considered a lot more well known than some of the schools mentioned during the starting lineups. I have still barely heard of the following schools, and I just looked them up; Alcorn State (McNair), Augustana (Anderson), Louisiana Tech (Bradshaw), Morehead State (Simms), Northern Iowa (Warner), Southern Mississippi (Favre), Youngstown State (Jaworski).

The more amazing stat is the lack of starting quarterback representation at the top of college football’s elite. Storied programs like Texas, Ohio State, Oklahoma, and USC have never seen one of their Saturday heroes play on the biggest Sunday of the year. In fact, when looking at top 20 winningiest current D1 schools in history, only 10 have had a produced a Super Bowl starting quarterback. Meanwhile, #42 Purdue has six and #62 UCLA has four.

I guess you win college football games by running the ball and playing good defense instead of throwing the ball all over the field with a NFL-style quarterback. Lame.