Sometimes the world baffles me.

I guess this really shouldn’t be news but, on occasion, something reminds me how little I understand about this is big, round ball we all live on.

This week, the overwhelming story has been focused on Penn State and the aftermath of revelations of the depravity of former coach Jerry Sandusky. But when the most evil player in a drama is not the most famous, the focus inevitably shifts to the better known (see: Lay, Ken; Enron scandal). The debate shifted from determining how much Paterno knew, when he knew it and whether he did enough (the answers appear to be: a lot, a long time ago, not nearly enough), to how Paterno’s career should be treated relative to these allegations. Should he be allowed to leave the program on his own terms? Should he coach this week? Is he being scape-goated by the school because he is the best known name?

I have an answer for these for one simple reason. I don’t care.

If the allegations are true that he has been notified on at least 2 separate occasions going all the way back to 1998, of what Sandusky was doing, then Paterno’s legacy, exit and career are the least of my concerns.  He enabled a child predator for over a decade.

I’m not a lawyer but it seems like the phrase ‘aid and abet’ is appropriate.

So Paterno doesn’t get to run out with his team in Beaver Stadium one last time. Oh well. Poor him. That is a much bigger tragedy than the shattered lives of 20 young boys.

If anyone is old enough to remember the lessons learned from Richard Nixon it is Paterno (in fact he was already middle-aged) – it is the cover-up that always gets you.

Paterno, for whatever reason, apparently ignored all of the warning signs about what Sandusky did, children paid a price and now Paterno is paying a price. I don’t feel sorry for Paterno, I feel sorry for the children whose lives have been torn apart by his in-action.

With the news world focused on a coach leaving a job, this week’s THH puts a different spin on it. All of the match-ups this week feature one participant that once was associated with a team and is now facing that team.

College

S. Carolina @ Florida

Steve Spurrier won a Heisman as a Florida Gator, returned the UF football program to a place of national prominence, made oversized visors the go-to head gear for coaches and won UF’s first national title (thanks to epic choke jobs by both Nebraska and Arizona State, though I’m not bitter). Basically you can blame Spurrier for all of those obnoxious ‘Go Gator’ commercials, the undeserved arrogance of every Gator fan you meet, Gary Danielson’s undying love of everything blue and orange. Bob Stoops’ love of visors with brims bigger than his head and even Tim Tebow’s college career.

But things changed for Spurrier when he left Gainesville and failed miserably in the NFL. Now he has a talented but always underperforming Gamecock team, a love-hate relationship with former quarterback Stephen Garcia that is practically ripped from the pages of US Weekly and, like the Pacific ocean trash patch, an ego that is lost in an entire sea of arrogant, blowhard SEC coaches.

In short, he has been humbled, which makes him easier to cheer for. Especially compared to the program he left behind in Gainesville.

NC State @ Boston College

Like Spurrier, Tom O’Brien helped make the BC program relevant and then left for a promising opportunity but failed miserably in that new job. Where Spurrier went to the NFL, O’Brien moved south to NC State, presumably to have access to better, faster athletes.

After he left Chestnut Hill, the Eagles made an ACC title game appearance, developed a top-3 NFL draft pick quarterback and a coach was fired for openly looking for another job.

Since arriving in Raleigh, Tom has done little, with his highlights being an-almost ACC title game appearance last year and then running off the quarterback of that team because that quarterback wanted to play baseball in the off-season. That quarterback went to Wisconsin, and Russell Wilson was a Heisman contender and had the Badgers in the top ten earlier this season. But O’Brien really showed him who is boss! Now, the Wolfpack are 5-4 and O’Brien is 3 games from adding to the nation’s unemployment rolls, which means we could also blame O’Brien for our continued national economic challenges. I will cheer on B.C. this week, mostly so that O’Brien learns a lesson taught us by the poets known as Cinderella: don’t know what you got till it’s gone.

NFL

Arizona @ Philadelphia

Kevin Kolb makes his triumphant return to the team that initially named him a savior but quickly forgot about him when another, flashier player showed up. In that way, Kolb is a lot like Brady Quinn. Also much like Brady Quinn it turns out Kolb isn’t a very good quarterback. And, again like Quinn, Kolb likely won’t play this weekend. Kolb is injured which puts a damper on his homecoming. Also putting a damper on his homecoming: the fact that neither of these teams is very good. The Eagles have played more like the 1992 Angolan national basketball team than the 1992 US basketball ‘dream team’. I may enjoy watching great teams, but there is nothing I enjoy more than watching an overly hyped teams fail. So for that I will stand at Kolb’s side on the Cardinal bench and cheer on John Skelton and the Cardinals to pull the upset.

Washington @ Miami

Like Kevin Kolb, John Beck returns to play the team that drafted him in the 2^nd round of the 2007 draft.

Sidenote: Is the 2007 draft the worst quarterback draft of all time? Top five taken: Jamarcus Russell, Brady Quinn, Kevin Kolb, John Beck and Drew Stanton – all in the top two rounds. The next group: Isaiah Stanbeck, Jeff Rowe, Troy Smith, Jordan Palmer and Tyler Thigpen. I dare anyone to find a class that is so bad from top to bottom.

The biggest difference between Kolb and Beck though is that while Beck is playing his fan-base wishes he weren’t while Kolb won’t play and his fan-base wishes he was.

I will cheer on the Dolphins for two reasons, that in the end have little to do with Beck saying ‘I told you so’ to the Dolphins. First, because my good friend Doug is a huge dolphin fan and I want to make sure he doesn’t get to cheer on Andrew Luck for the next 15 years. Secondly, there are few things in life that give me the same joy as seeing the Mike Shanahan post-loss fart face.

Coming into the 2011 college football season, it doesn’t feels like we are facing the dawn of a new season. Rather, it feels like we are emerging from our debris covered shelters into a post-apocalyptic world.

After an off-season filled with controversy; teams being busted breaking every rule in the book and schools flirting with new conferences like a divorcee out at Applebee’s on a Thursday night, the college football world isn’t the same one we left last January. Where buildings with flashy neon signs that said THE Ohio State University and THE U once stood, are now piles of rubble.

But like the obligatory rose growing from the rubble that is a less then subtle metaphor for hope in apocalypse films, college football too has moments that remind us why we love college football so much.

They are called Saturdays.

So with Saturdays about to kick off, it is time to make my bold and almost guaranteed to be entirely wrong, season predictions. And this year, just like ESPN scripted it, the college football success comes down to one thing.

It is all about the quarterbacks.

For me to even consider a team as a national title contender, a team needs to have a proven quarterback.

Last year, Florida and Texas started the season as top five teams. Coming off BCS bowl appearances, a number of starters returning and rosters filled with highly recruited kids coming out high school, it was just assumed they could pick up right where they had left off the year before when they combined for 2 losses.

Instead they combined for 12 losses.

What was the difference? New quarterbacks.

It was just assumed that with the coaches and talent around them, John Brantley and Garrett Gilbert could pick up where Tim Tebow and Colt McCoy had left off.

But a fancy pedigree doesn’t guarantee success. UF and UT last year aren’t the only examples of course. Matt Leinart took USC to 2 straight national title games. His followers, John David Booty, Mark Sanchez and Matt Barkley have never even sniffed a BCS title game.

Applying this lesson automatically eliminates several traditional national title contenders.

Sorry Alabama, time to go poison another tree in defeat.

Tough luck Ohio State, your tattoos this year will need frowny-faces.

Too bad Virginia Tech, another BCS bowl and we would have tried to learn what a Hokie is.

Arkansas, it was fun. Call us when Bobby Petrino abandons you mid-season or Jerry Jones buys you a championship.

With this logic, I envisioned LSU making the national championship game, given the NCAA’s new by-law that states a National title game must always involve a SEC team, but now that Jordan Jefferson tapped his inner-Garo Yapremian during a bar brawl a couple weeks ago, there are just too many open questions.

So which teams are left that fit the mold?

Oklahoma has Landry Jones, his moustache and virginity back but also a (hopefully – crossing fingers – knocking wood) tough game in Tallahassee in a couple weeks and then what appears to be a weakened Big Twelve to navigate.

Oregon should have clear sailing to the BCS title game, if they can get by LSU this weekend and Stanford later in the season. A huge if. Nothing is scarier than a Christmas tree mascot and 50,000 IT nerds spending halftime day-dreaming of becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg.

Stanford has to get by Oregon. Which is infinitely harder given the number of uniforms Oregon wears. They always say visualization is a key game preparation. How is someone supposed to visualize beating the Ducks, when they don’t know what they will look like? Are you at a distinct disadvantage if you envisioned the Ducks in white and they come out in neon green? I say yes. Andrew Luck will just have to console himself with the Heisman Trophy they are already engraving for him.

Boise State would seem poised to be in the perfect spot to finally crack the BCS title game crystal ceiling. Kellen Moore returns; they have one last year of the junior varsity schedule of the WAC. Their toughest game is against perennially overrated Georgia on opening weekend. Unfortunately for BSU, there is about 0% chance that pollsters and athletic directors will allow them to steal the money from a less-deserving BCS conference team.

Florida State has a sort of returning QB in EJ Manual, who has the physical tools to be the next Cam Newton (with fewer felonies). But after getting so badly out-coached by Bob Stoops last season, will the Noles prepare for last year’s OU game plan only to be surprised by another new wrinkle? If so, will I momentarily contemplate stabbing Josh Heupel in the kidneys for being single-handedly responsible for several of my worst moments as a FSU fan? The answer to one of these questions is yes.

The Noles also have to go Gainesville, and if Charlie Weis and Will Muschamp haven’t come to blows by then, it will be a tough game. The Noles will also have to navigate their inevitable road ACC game no-show (prime candidates: at Clemson the week after OU and the Thursday night game at Boston College). While every game is winnable, the Noles have beaten the optimist out of me over the last decade, so I will assume they come up short at least once or twice.

Oregon and Oklahoma may both lose once, but pollsters have proven over and over again, that if you are ranked at the top of the polls at the beginning of the season you are given every opportunity to stay there.

Having seen Bob Stoops coach BCS games, I can’t in good conscience pick an OU title (sorry, Turner), so it says here that the Oregon Ducks will win the national title, and Phil Knight will immediately commission 11 different versions of the national title trophy – with each trotted out before a different game next season.

Let’s just hope it doesn’t come down to a ref botching an onside kick call this time.

It is a common malady of approaching middle age to reminisce about the past. The stereotypes for this are those unfortunate souls who seemed to peak in life as the big men of their high school. The Captain of the football team or the Homecoming King who never quite get their life together after graduation day and twenty years later still talk about when they were the biggest fish in the small aquarium that was their high school.

I like to think I have avoided this fate for the most part. I have had plenty of successes since graduating high school: a fine college career; good job that allows me that opportunity to do things I want to do – whether it is a weekend trip to Vegas or a couple weeks in Europe; a hobby of writing anonymously on the internet for the entertainment of myself and about 4 other people. By any reasonable definition my life does not suck.

Yet, for at least one Saturday in 2010, football made me think about when I was younger. The college game we have come to know over the last few years seems to be gone. But it isn’t a new world. It is an old world. Like 1997. The college football world hasn’t so much evolved as it has regressed.

After a decade with just a short list of contenders each year playing hot potato with the national championship, suddenly an entirely new cast has risen up. Some are new players that a decade ago were the punchline of a joke about painted fields or lame mascots.

But for at least one Saturday the headline makers weren’t the new kids on the block. They were schools and people at the top of the game back when New Kids on the Block were being re-packaged and re-sold as The Backstreet Boys.

Even before the weekend officially started, Nebraska made a statement that they are to be reckoned with for the first time in a decade. Going into the Little Apple and decimating Kansas State on national TV, the Huskers combined an option-oriented offense almost indistinguishable from the offenses led by Tommy Frazier and Scott Frost with a defense that finally resembles the Black Shirt teams of the 1990’s that were the standard bearers for defense before Nick Saban’s teams stole it’s belt.

Combine an embarrassingly bad Big Twelve North, a down Texas and no Oklahoma until the Big Twelve title game and the Huskers should coast for quite awhile at this point. Much like those Husker teams of the 90’s, we won’t know how good this team really is but I can’t be the only one excited for a late season Oklahoma/Nebraska game that decides the conference title.

Saturday’s biggest headline maker was the Ol’ Ball Coach. Rendered humble, and worse for his ego, inconsequential, for his entire tenure at South Carolina, Spurrier’s Gamecocks rose up and took down the #1 Crimson Tide. He doesn’t have the wide open attack that he used at Florida to dominate the SEC for the 1990’s but he does have a solid running back playing the Fred Taylor role and a quarterback that for at least one day had more good plays than bad plays. I always loathed Spurrier when he was coaching the Gators: his arrogance, his style, his dominance, all of it combined to make him completely insufferable.

But now, after his humiliation with the Redskins and years of being an SEC East doormat, he has returned as the slightly quieter, more mature Ol’ Ball Coach. The visor was still there, but this time he wasn’t spiking it to the ground after bad plays. 

Maybe it is just relative to his SEC cohorts Nick Saban and Urban Meyer but I find myself almost rooting for Spurrier.

Spurrier’s old team, the Gators also seems to have reverted to the team we got to know in the late 90’s and early 00’s. After years of riding his Holiness Tebow to greatness the Gators appear to be absolutely pedestrian. No playmakers on offense (a secret weakness Tebow was able to conceal since Percy Harvin left school), and a suspect defense. It is fun to watch the genius Urban Meyer consistently fail when he doesn’t have a supremely talented QB leading his team (he gained notoriety at Utah dominating the Mountain West with future #1 overall draft pick Alex Smith – which at a minimum proves the NFC West may not be great but it is better than the Mountain West). LSU coming into Gainesville and beating the Gators not only proves Les Miles is the Austin Powers of college football (he screws up everything, yet it all works out perfectly in the end) but also that Urban’s team has fallen further than anyone realized.

All of the above are just the individual trees in a more important forest: the SEC isn’t what it was. The SEC has won 4 straight national titles but they are going to need a lot of help from the brainwashed sheep that make up the polls to get a chance at a fifth. South Carolina lost to Auburn. Auburn almost lost to Kentucky. LSU should have lost to Tennessee. Tennessee then went out and got destroyed by Georgia. A team that the week before lost to Colorado.

It wasn’t too long ago that the SEC was a conference of tradition-rich programs that were good but not great. There would be several ranked teams but rarely would one figure in the national title conversation. There weren’t great teams that could win week in and week out. They would inevitably fall short one week, like Alabama on Saturday. From 1990 to 2005, SEC teams played for the national title as many times as they have in the last four years. (Bama in ‘92, UF in ‘95 and ‘96, Tennessee in ‘98).

Speaking of another team missing a key ingredient that kept them in the national title conversation the USC Trojans found a way to lose to Stanford. We have been conditioned to think of USC as a perennial power, but as we have discussed, before Pete Carroll showed up USC was mediocre. Bringing in Lane Kiffin is just the first step in devolving back to a USC program that we saw with such luminaries and Paul Hackett and Larry Smith.

Last but, by far, the most important development of Saturday (at least for me) was Florida State’s utter demolition of Miami.

In a series that is known for close games and painful endings, the Seminoles came out Saturday night and pounded the Canes. In fact, they pounded them worse than any game since…1997.

It wasn’t just that the Noles won big and when in previous years they would have let the Canes back in to the game they instead stepped on their throats. It was how they won. They won by running the ball and playing defense. They have become the Penn State Nittany Lions. They have become Bill Parcells’ New York Giants.

After years of the Seminoles playing one good game and then getting embarrassed the following week, usually on the road in the ACC, this team has won 3 straight games; two on the road, all in the ACC, with the closest game being a 20 point win at UVA.

They aren’t fluky wins. They aren’t blocking field goals or returning kick-offs for touchdowns. They aren’t even using fast wide receivers to pick up 15 to 20 yards per pass. They are handing the ball off to a bevy of quick running backs and letting them run behind a grown-up offensive line. Two FSU quarterbacks won Heisman trophies by leading a high powered offense. This year, Christian Ponder lost the Heisman when the Noles got embarrassed by Oklahoma and now has turned the team around by putting stats aside and becoming the change of pace from the running game.

I may not recognize how they won, but it still doesn’t change how it makes me feel.

It makes me feel old.

This past Saturday I woke up and after starting the coffee brewing and grabbing the paper I decided to turn on the TV to see if I could catch a Premier League game. My boys from Arsenal had already won and Fox Soccer was showing a game I didn’t care about so I checked what was on ESPN. To my surprise, the first College Game Day of the season was on. To say my life improved at hearing Big and Rich sing the word ‘cit-tay’ is a vast understatement.

Sure, there were the usual annoyances: Herbstreit’s annual unwarranted Hurricane love fest, Corso picking a UF/Nebraska national title game and an extended discussion about Notre Dame as required by ESPN’s FCC license. But all of that is just the trees making up the forest of something much. Much bigger: college football is back!

Gone are those boiling hot Saturdays where your afternoon sports decision is between a baseball game and a golf tournament. Now we return to cooler temperatures, and days upon days of football. It is enough to make a man want to build his own man-cave for enjoying 12 hours of football each Saturday. Oh wait, I am doing that. I rock.

So with that, let’s waste no further time. Let’s jump right in. It is time for my annual destined-to-be-embarrassingly wrong predictions for the college football season. Write them down in ink today, and laugh at their idiocy for months to come:

Not This Year Folks: For the first time since 2005’s epic USC/Texas national championship game (redaction by rule of the NCAA) we will not have a representative of the SEC in the national championship game.

Yes, Alabama is the defending national champion but they won that title with defense. A defense that now has 9 new starters. Hard to see this being the same defense as the one led by Rolando McClain and Mount Cody (who personally won them the Tennessee game last year you might remember). Not only that but thanks to a quirk of scheduling their final 6 SEC opponents will all play the Tide coming off of a bye week. That obviously won’t help every opponent but the Tide didn’t exactly blow anyone out last year. One or two minor slip-ups are pretty easy to envision. Of course as their friends in Baton Rouge can tell you, even losing twice doesn’t automatically disqualify a team from national championship game – assuming the pollsters are as infatuated with you as teenage girls are with Justin Bieber, so maybe the Tide will sneak in anyway but I still don’t see it.

On the other side of the SEC, the only team that could make a case is the Gators but without the magic of Tebow and the constant losses to the draft along the offensive line and defense they also seem ripe for a couple losses. There are plenty of traps on the Gator schedule: at Tuscaloosa and…dare I say it…(oh, you dare, you dare)…at Tallahassee seem to be prime candidates as well as the annual ‘closer-than-it-should-be game’  or outright loss in the Swamp – LSU and South Carolina look just strong enough to scare the Gators. Outside of Alachua County though, the SEC East is marginally better than the Sun Belt right now. I know Georgia and Tennessee name recognition but that is the only credibility they carry into the season. Call me when you win a game of consequence. With that, the winner of the SEC title game will need a lot of help to reach the BCS title game again.

You Can Show Yourself Out: The last few years, one of the biggest stories in college football has been  the rise of teams from the non-power conferences on to the BCS stage. This year Boise State has the unprecedented opportunity of beginning the season in the top five, setting up an easy to envision rise to that national title game. I know ESPN’s talking heads said that the BCS title game would take 2 one-loss teams over BSU but that is hard to believe from a simple logistical approach.

If every other team loses a game, BSU will have to sit atop the polls at some point. If Alabama and OSU lose and BSU remains undefeated, then either the teams that beat each rise to the top or BSU does. But then in this scenario, whatever teams jump them (say Florida and Iowa) would also lose. So, somehow we are expected to believe BSU would never climb to the #1 spot? And if they do, can the pollsters really dislodge a #1 team that doesn’t lose? I don’t see it.

However this hypothetical scenario that must keep BCS Commissioners up all night worrying about the gypsies taking over their palace will remain just what it is – a hypothetical. One week from today this could be a moot point and I think it will be. It is conventional wisdom around here that Virginia Tech always loses at least one game they shouldn’t. The opening weekend BSU game seems like a prime contender for one of VT’s annual embarrassments. But I don’t think so. Not this time. This is, in essence, a home game for the Hokies and they have an experienced QB and two experienced running backs to not fold on the big stage. Combine that with superior size and athleticism and I think VT can overcome their overrated and overmatched coaching staff and send Cinderella back to Smurfland with a loss, ending the speculation before it can even begin. Oh, and TCU? Yeah, you had your shot last year in a BCS bowl and apparently used the Bob Stoops BCS game handbook to prepare for it. Don’t think you will get a second invite back to the party no matter what you do this year.

Archie Griffin: Popping champagne by Week #5: Archie Griffin will get to embrace his inner-Mercury Morris when he remains the only two-time Heisman trophy winner for yet another year. I wasn’t a strong believer in Mark Ingram last year (since I am 98% sure his back-up Trent Richardson is as good as he is, how can he be the best player in the country), so if you factor in a loss or two for the Tide, less impressive stats (as team really key on stopping him, which you even saw at the end of last season) and beginning the season already injured, there seems little to no chance he is holding up the bronze statue again this season. If everything else plays out as expected (see below), I think you will see Terrelle Pryor up on that stage in December: he has the hype, the name-school, the pre-season ranking and the Big Ten to put up great stats against. Throw in a highlight reel play or two and 11 wins or so and it would take an out-of-nowhere Charles Woodson like year to take it away from him.

And on a personal note: We have been waiting for years, asking the same question: could this be the year? When I say ‘we’ I mean Seminole fans, of course. Is this the year our boys finally rise back to the top of the rankings? For once, I think it might be possible. With probably the best quarterback to wear the garnet and gold not named Charlie Ward, more talented but unproven running backs and wide receivers than the Tea Party has lunatics and an experienced line, this should be as good an offense as we have seen since we were all stocking cans for Y2K. On the defensive side, FSU had the 110^th best defense last year and still went 7-6. Even if they achieve mediocrity (ranking in 50s or 60s) this team could finish with just 2 or 3 losses. Now we have a new, young coordinator and some of the top freshmen in the country. I’m not saying FSU will be in the national title conversation or definitely beat OU in week #2, but will they be hovering around a top ten ranking, have a major upset on their resume and possibly be in consideration for a BCS Bowl bid at the end of the season? Finally, yes.

At the End of the Day: There is really only one thing that matters in college football: who wins the crystal football. Looking into my tea leaves (chai: left over from my post latte tea this morning – I am a 2 caffeine drink kind of guy), I see yet another Ohio State title game appearance. Sorry Peffer. With a strong team back, only a couple major challenges (Iowa, Miami and Wisconsin) and a quarterback that could go all Vince Young at a moment’s notice, it is hard to dismiss OSU making it back to the title game. And facing OSU will, ironically, be VY’s old team, the Texas Longhorns. Sorry Turner. Yes, McCoy is gone but Garrett Gilbert filled in admirably in the BCS title game and should mature throughout this season. A depleted Big 12 leaves them with only 3 really tough games all year:

Oklahoma: hard to believe but I take Mack Brown over Bob Stoops in a coaching duel any day. Wow, did I just write something positive about Mack? I must be running a fever.

Nebraska: Sure last year’s Big 12 title game was close. But that was thanks to a man named Suh. He is gone. Unfortunately the Huskers’ quarterbacks remain. Their chance at a win does not.

Texas A&M: Wow, what year is this? 1996? Texas A&M, seriously? Sure, they have a fine quarterback. But the Aggies have been waiting to return to relevance even longer than the Seminoles. I’m from Missouri (literally): you need to show me something before I believe it.

With that it seems pretty clear we are looking at a Texas v. Ohio State title game. Sorry Horns but the Big 12’s failure on the BCS stage continues another year and OSU takes away the BCS title as well as my favorite running joke about the Big Ten not being able to compete with the southern schools.

I say the loss of one running joke is a small sacrifice to make for the glory that is another college football season. As a lame commercial for a cheap light beer says: here we go.

If you need me, I will be in my man-cave.

Even before he came to campus, he was a legend.

A prep god from a nearby town he had his pick of any school in the country but chose to the local team and instantly became the talk of the city.

When he was named the starter as an underclassman, the coach altered his offensive playbook to take advantage of his quarterbacks’ unique skills.

Some believed he would leave school after his junior year on the field, having nothing left to prove. He disagreed and overjoyed a city, while depressing the rest of his conference when he announced he was returning for his final season.

When both journalists and regular folks talk about him in the hometown of his school, it isn’t in terms of his on-field skills. No discussion of a good pass or great run is worthy; instead it is in terms usually reserved for people who have accomplished more than simply excelling in a sport. They talk of his character, his brain, his personality, his good deeds. They speak of some guy named Gandhi learning humility from him.

To his fans, calling him “great” is an insult and understatement on par with saying Lane Kiffin is a little off-putting.

In the run-up to his final season, there is no doubt in some circles that he is the finest player in the land and conversations could be had about his historical ranking.

Welcome to Seattle, Washington – home of Tim Tebow v2.0: Jake Locker.

Unlike most of the new versions pumped out by that tiny software start-up across Lake Washington in Redmond, however, there is a real belief that this new version is actually improved and could ultimately perform better than the original.  

Jake Locker comes into his final season of college football with a local celebrity much like that a certain QB enjoyed at the opposite end of the country last year. He is an otherworldly athlete, leading the local team by making great plays on the field while maintaining a humble, ‘all-American’, too-good-to-be-true attitude off of it.

However, in other ways Locker’s celebrity is the exact opposite. Where ‘His’ legend grew based on guts, heart and impassioned speeches and winning game, Locker’s legend has been defined not by what he has done but what he is capable of.

Where countless haters were born from the constant, omnipresent hype of His greatness a year ago, outside of King county today, most people would wonder why you want to know about a retired Bronco quarterback if you ask them about Jake Locker.

Locker has never been surrounded by the best players in the country – except when trying to avoid a sack by the USC defense.

His teams have won a total of 8 games he has started in his 3 years on campus, which was a slow week for Tebow in Gainesville: he could win two games before his first class on Tuesday morning through sheer will power.

Yet, when they speak of Locker here, they whisper stories that sound like those exaggerated tales they used to tell about Tebow. Where SuperMan wore Tebow underwear or Chuck Norris learned to fight from Tebow, the stories here are that Locker was not only the strongest player on the entire football team but was also the fastest.

Whether these stories are actually true or just myths repeated often enough to become truth doesn’t really matter. In Seattle, Locker has transcended.  

The Huskies should be improved this year under second year head coach Steve Sarkisian. Hopes are high – but even hopes differ from those down in the swamp. Where the Gators dreamed of their Lord and Savior leading them to national titles, Husky fans only ask of maybe a winning season and a bowl appearance for their messiah. Being two years removed from a winless season when Locker was lost to injury helps mute those expectations.

But, you get the feeling that even if the Huskies fail in the quest for a winning record and bowl appearance, everything would still be all right.

Husky fans seem to have come to accept that the Locker story is bigger than them. Where Tebow may be defined for the rest of his life by his time in Gainesville, the feeling even among the Husky faithful seems to be that this time in a Husky uniform is merely a prologue in the Book of Jake.

Tebow was a great college quarterback but not a great athlete or NFL prospect. He had suspect passing mechanics, he played in a system that doesn’t work in the pros, he isn’t accurate or smart enough. In the last year we heard (or in some cases wrote) all of the criticisms. For Jake those aren’t the questions. It is widely believed he has all the necessary physical gifts to excel at the next level. He has a strong arm. He is big and powerful and shockingly quick. Whether his team wins in college is an afterthought.

Though it could be argued that as an indicator of pro potential, collegiate success should be as big a measure of a prospect as physical attributes (just ask Jeff George and Jay Cutler) those simple arguments don’t apply to Jake. He has transcended.

T he Book of Jake will really be written starting next spring, when he could be the first pick taken in the NFL draft. I am sure there are some in town that dream of a LeBron-esque scenario where Locker plays professionally for his home town – after the last few years the sports gods certainly owe them at least that much – but I think most of Seattle will simply wish whatever team does draft Locker the best and, as long as it isn’t in the NFC West, will quietly root for them each Sunday.

Right now none of that really matters. That is the future. Seattle gets to enjoy Him for one more season. Whether his team wins 0, 2, 7 or 12 games doesn’t really matter either. Before He goes out and inevitably conquers bigger worlds, they still get him all to themselves for 12 more games.

For one more fall he is still theirs and he can do anything.

This morning Broncos training camp kicked off in Dove Valley south of Denver. For the first time in years I have no plans to attend. Of course were the Broncos interested in giving me a media credential I am sure I could find the time to attend a practice or two. Broncos, your move.

I am not planning to go for two reasons.

First, I already used a big chunk of vacation for the World Cup Europe extravaganza back in June. You are welcome.

Second, I can’t imagine a worse hell than sitting in 95 degree heat surrounded by morons that do their shopping at broncogator.com.

I don’t call these people names (strictly) because they shop at broncogator.com. I also assume they will spend the entire practice making arguments why their messiah Tebow should be the Broncos starting quarterback. I imagine every completed Tebow pass will be greeted with cheers to match Mark Jackson’s touchdown catch to finish off The Drive (a play 98% of them will not be familiar with). Each poor Orton pass will result in a rain of boos not seen since Jay Cutler’s return to Mile High last pre-season.

While these idiots look on each move by OLASTT (refresher: Our Lord And Savior Tim Tebow) as validation of his righteousness, I think they are missing the key point and something they can never see in a practice.

I am not sure Tebow is smart enough to be an NFL QB.

In the months before and after the NFL draft much was made of Tebow’s throwing mechanics. He spent many videotaped hours shortening his wind-up and working on dropping back to prove to NFL teams that he could make the transition to becoming a more traditional NFL drop back passer.

I have little doubt that Tebow can succeed in this. Let’s face it, you can say many things about him but OLASTT is a physical freak and an incredibly hard worker. If his problem were solely teaching his muscles to do something different, I have no doubt he can be successful.

But that isn’t his main problem. Even with perfect mechanics OLASTT needs to learn how to read defenses, find the open receiver and complete the pass, all while the defense tries to kill him. These are the things I worry about. I am not sure that underneath that spiky, greasy hair Tebow has the brain for the NFL.

I am not talking about his Wonderlic score or anything like that (though apparently that isn’t going to help his cause), I am talking about what I saw watching the guy for three plus years in college.

Urban Meyer’s system doesn’t require much from a quarterback’s head. A read option running game that is so simple it has become the default offense of most high schools in the country. A simple passing game where UF’s faster wide receivers beat the defense and Tebow has his choice of wide open receivers.

To succeed in that system doesn’t require intelligence. Yet the NFL requires a ton. Look at Alex Smith, another quarterback who succeeded in Meyer’s system. All indications is that he is smarter than OLASTT (higher Wonderlic, graduated with a 3.7 GPA in two years in Economics) and he certainly seemed nearly equally athletic coming out of college yet it has taken him 6 years just to become a mediocre NFL quarterback.

The part that concerns me is OLASTT’s ability to react when things break down – and after last season I think we can expect that a lot with this offensive line. A successful QB in the pros is able to maintain poise under pressure, continue his reads and find the open receiver. Look at OLASTT’s highlight reel. His ‘greatest’ plays were when he gave up on a pass play under pressure and just took off. When he did try and stick with the pass his senior year to improve his draft prospects, his decision making wasn’t always the best. And he didn’t seem to learn from his mistakes. Yes, that is the same game.

In the NFL with bigger, stronger defenses looking for any chance to rip the head off a rookie getting Favre-esque treatment by the media that is a recipe for disaster.

NFL game speed intelligence isn’t the same as normal intelligence. Josh McDaniels may have been impressed by OLASTT being able to regurgitate plays to him when talking at UF before the draft but going from that to being able to read defenses on the run is like going from a multiple-choice test of a chapter in a history book to a debate with the top student in Harvard Law School.

Unfortunately, all of the glowing coverage and worshipers descending on Dove Valley that will inevitably make the argument OLASTT should start will not be able to see any of this. The only time he can demonstrate that he has the head to play in the NFL is during a game. A real game. Not the fourth quarter of a pre-season game where the competition is probably less talented than most of the teams he played in the SEC.

Hell, even Bradlee Van Pelt, the worst joke of the Shanahan era not named Maurice Clarett, was good in the 4^th quarter of a pre-season game.

Kyle Orton will never inspire legions of children to wear jorts and look up passages from scripture but he succeeds in the NFL not because of his athletic abilities but his brain. He balances limited athletic gifts by not making mistakes.

Jay Cutler, for all the scorn I have heaped on him was capable of making the right decision. His problem is that his arrogance tends to override what he knows is the right decision. He should dump it off to the back in the flat but is absolutely sure his great arm can fire the ball past the defender to his receiver down field.

The prevailing wisdom is that the Broncos will use Tebow on short yardage and goal line situations. Despite the brain-dead argument of a local writer who should probably spend less time in the tanning booth and more time thinking through his columns before turning them in, this is exactly how he should be used. Not only are these plays geared to his run-option strengths but they also limit his decision making. There is no sitting back and reading the defense while the play develops – it is make one quick decision and go, which is exactly how OLASTT plays.

This is the logical step for him. Let OLASTT learn what the speed of the pro game is like, while running plays he is comfortable with. Adjusting to the NFL while also trying to learn how to essentially play a new position is just too much. If OLASTT actually does have the brain to succeed in the pros, it will be in baby steps. Let him read the compressed defense and limited passing options of a 3^rd down and 3 before asking him to drop back on a 1^st and 15 from his own twenty with the entire field in front of him and any of hundreds of defenses opposing him.

I have never looked in his eyes, so I can’t speak to the power of his gaze turning me into a teenage girl like The Wiz from Seinfeld; but I have watched a ton of his games and nothing I have seen says there is the sharp, quick decision making going behind those inspirational eye-blacks that will be necessary to be great with the Broncos.

So, when OLASTT does get on the field this pre-season don’t focus on his passing and don’t cheer his running. Every time he scraps a pass play in favor of taking off down the field should actually cause you to cringe if you are a Bronco fan. Focus on whether he sits in the pocket, makes his reads and hits the open receivers.

Sometimes the easiest looking play is the most difficult.