ESPN has declared 2011, “The Year of the Quarterback”. Quarterbacks are the most popular athletes in the country, so it is a smart move to pre-emptively frame an entire football season to drive as much as interest as possible. You can both cater to hard core fans (see: new QBR stat) and the larger number of casual fans at the same time (see Brady and Tebow hagiographies), all in the name of reporting the news.

While ESPN has used this as a way to drive ratings (as they do with all decisions), they have also affected the perception of how we watch football and over-inflated the importance of this position relative to reality. But ESPN is used to deciding what is news and how we should look at it.

ESPN has recently come under deserved attack for their decision to not pursue a story of much greater significance than a guy who sticks his hand under another guys’ bum. In this case it is important to remember the key fallacy underpinning whatever defense ESPN puts forth – ESPN doesn’t just report the news it shapes what becomes news.

When you develop a de facto monopoly on being the sports news source for millions of people, you shape the news. If you lead with a story, it is NEWS. If you ignore it is, just a crazy conspiracy theory on par with aliens and Elvis sightings.

I don’t mean this to be an attack on ESPN’s questionable journalistic ethics – when you run a business that tries to market a product while at the same time act as independent journalists reporting on the same product your ethics are always going to be about as clear as tax laws.

Rather it is an attack on a foundation underpinning their entire ‘Year of the Quarterback’ marketing push. In the NFL, there is no doubt the quarterback is the key to a team’s success (see: Colts, Indianapolis). However in the college game it just isn’t the case.

College quarterback may be the most overrated position in sports.

Look at the national champions of the last decade. Every team that has won a title over the last decade has done so with only one of two quarterback types under center: Superman or Jimmy Olsen. The teams that have Clark Kent inevitably fail.

To clarify.

The Supermen are the rare individual that can put a team on its back and single-handedly, through sheer physical attributes, leadership and desire win the national title for their teams. Tim Tebow, Vince Young and Cam Newton exemplify Supermen. You can point to games that were won by Superman almost wholly by himself; either the national title game itself or a pivotal game on the way to the title game.  While being the most exhilarating, decorated players, and the ones that are most likely go on to be legends, Supermen are also the most rare.

The Jimmy Olsen is the care-taker who is simply in place to not make mistakes and let the players around him win games for him. His goal is to not lose the game. Make the right decisions. No interceptions. No fumbles. Get the ball to better players and let them win it. Greg McElroy, Matt Flynn, Matt Mauck, Craig Krenzel. All have national titles on their resumes yet none would have been considered one of the 5 best quarterbacks in the country in their title winning year.

The most dangerous quarterback to have on your team and the one that nearly guarantees disappointment is the Clark Kent. This is a talented player, who shows flashes of being a Superman but in the end can’t do it by themselves. Fanbases laud these players in the pre-season and NFL teams drool over their talent; yet as talented as they may be they don’t have a cape on underneath that uniform. They are the perennial tease. Their team’s fans and their own teammates want them to become Supermen but they can’t quite do it. Sam Bradford, Mark Sanchez, Troy Smith, Colt McCoy even Andrew Luck and Landry Jones are all seen as nearly Supermen by their boosters and fellow teammates. Yet none have or will win a national title. Their team is too reliant on them but alas they are mere mortals.

Arguably there are 2 players that could be called Clark Kents that did win national titles since Y2k: Ken Dorsey and Matt Leinart, but I would say that hindsight (and their subsequent pro-careers) have defined them as talented Jimmy Olsens with other-worldly talent around them.

It should be no surprise then this year that the BCS title game will (apparently) feature quarterbacks on both offenses that are simply asked to not screw it up. Jarrett Lee was the quintessential Jimmy Olsen; continuing a long line of Jimmy Olsens at LSU (with his only differentiating factor that he didn’t have the first name Matt) until he made the cardinal sin of making mistakes. 2 interceptions against Alabama and Lee was sent to the bench and in stepped Jordan Jefferson, who may make mistakes at bars but not on the football field. For Alabama, Greg McElroy has given way to AJ MaCarron, whose turnover against LSU may have cost his team the game.

(Though, in the nonsensical world of the BCS had no impact on Bama playing for the national title).

All of the teams with better known and higher profile QBs have slipped up this season. There is no shame in being a mere mortal – most of us are – but when you carry the burden of a team’s expectations it is hard to stay perfect for an entire season.

The Supermen of college football become legends who will be discussed for decades. But the pursuit and false pre-emptive deification of Clark Kents is the fastest route to disappointment.

For a team in search of a national title, it is a much safer route to find a smart quarterback that doesn’t make mistakes and instead focus on putting playmakers around him and a stout defense opposite him.

Yes, I fell for ESPN’s marketing hype as much as anyone in my pre-season prognostications. But it is never too late to learn.

Next year, I am picking the team with the best defensive tackle.

I had never thought about it before, but it seems pretty obvious now. The Athletic Directors of the major conferences that make up the BCS are fans of 1990’s rap. Whether it was Deion Sanders’ ”Must be the Money” or P. Diddy/Puff Daddy’s “All about the Benjamins”, the AD’s that decide the BCS bowls clearly only care about making money for themselves and their major conference constituents.

It is no secret that after the BCS Title game, all other bowl games are typically slotted based on maximizing the revenue of the individual bowls. Teams with large, active fan bases or teams with major national followings always get the nod over the up-and-coming, unknown feel-good story (see: Notre Dame, BCS appearances: 2005, 2006). However, this year the AD’s not only set up the bowls to make money this year but they also went to an extraordinary effort to ensure that those pesky non-BCS conference teams are marginalized as much as possible.

I am speaking specifically about the Fiesta Bowl match-up of Boise State and TCU. This is the biggest cop out in the history of the BCS. Every year we have a team or two from the non-BCS conferences that argue they are as good as the big boys. This year we have two of those. Yet, rather than matching them against BCS conference foes to help settle the debate, the geniuses at the BCS committee matched them up against themselves which proves….well nothing except that the BCS committee is scared to death of their mighty conferences getting taken down by another upstart.

After seeing Bama trounced by Utah last year and Boise’s miracle against OU a few years ago, the last thing the BCS committee needs is another proof point that says they can’t treat the WAC and Mountain West as second class citizens. If pollsters and the public begin to believe that those conferences have teams as strong as the major conferences, then the BCS committee fears the day when we will be arguing for a one-loss BYU team over a two-loss USC or Florida team.

Given that the members of the BCS represent those very same major conference teams, it is obviously in their best interests (of their conferences and the guys who want to keep their jobs) to get as many major conference teams in – which means keeping non-major conference teams out. If it is proven that those teams are as strong as the major conference teams, then the BCS as set up spirals into self-destruction. What happens to their precious BCS championship if TCU goes into the Sugar Bowl and routs an uninspired, disjointed and dispirited Florida team?

No, the only way to ensure that the non-BCS teams remain second class citizens and therefore can be routinely overlooked and marginalized is to just pit them against each other. Then the winner of that game is no more important than the winner of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

For the record, I think Boise State would get trounced by any of the other major conference BCS teams – sort of like Hawaii a couple years ago; they played an incredibly weak schedule and gave up way too many points.

But I sure would like to be able to prove it.

On to some other thoughts from Championship Saturday:

- Obviously we have to start with UF/Bama. I can’t remember a more dominating performance by a college team over another highly ranked team. There was literally only one time in the entire game where I thought UF would win. After UF scored to make it 12-10 Bama, I made the assumption that this is when UF takes over and Bama folds like a cheap lawn chair. But on the next offensive play, Mark Ingram took a perfectly called screen pass 69 yards and Bama scored a play later. After that, UF never had a chance, the Tebow Crying group was formed on Facebook and I spent all Monday morning trading emails with funny pictures of Tebow crying on the sidelines. Really, it was a perfect game in every way.

- This despite the best efforts of Gary Danielson. They often say Tebow wills his team to victory. On Saturday, Danielson was the one willing the Gators. For three quarters, he kept claiming this game was similar to last year’s when Bama lost a 3-point lead going into the 4^th quarter. Except this time it was a 13-point lead and Bama had been utterly dominant on both offense and defense the entire game. Other than that, it was the exact same Gary.

- Mark Ingram will probably win the Heisman this weekend but shouldn’t it be taken into consideration that (1) he wasn’t most the important reason Bama won this game and (2) there is a decent chance he isn’t the best player at his position on his own team. After watching Alabama the last two weeks, I am convinced if Tony Richardson was given the ball instead of Ingram, he would have as good if not better stats than Ingram. Can we really reward a guy with the Heisman for just being first string?

- While Ingram is at the podium next weekend in New York I hope he thanks his quarterback and offensive coordinator. This game was won by Greg McElroy’s flawless playing and the play-calling of offensive coordinator Jim McElwain. McElroy did more than was asked of him, making perfect passes and even taking off on two clutch runs that may have been the difference in the game (or as only Gary Danielson would say “he out-Tebowed Tebow”). Combine his flawless execution with McElwain’s play-calling and UF never had a chance. The UF defense was unprepared the entire game – except for one Wildcat play in the first quarter that (not so coincidentally) led to a three and out by Bama. After that play, UF never knew what was coming. Each new drive brought a new wrinkle and UF was reacting one step late all day.

- Each year there is a question of conference superiority and each year I argue against the SEC. Well, I may need to change that stance this year. Did you see that halftime contest of throwing footballs into giant Dr. Pepper cans? At the SEC game, a female med student from Bama hit 9 of 10 to beat a taunting, idiot from Gainesville (is there any other kind?) who made 8. In the Big Twelve game later, a woman from Nebraska won by making 2 over a woman from Texas who made zero.  9 to 8 versus 2 to 0? That sums up the SEC versus the Big Twelve better than I ever could.

- Speaking of the Big 12, am I the only one that was underwhelmed by Texas needing a last second field goal to beat a team with possibly the worst offense in America? Seriously, Nebraska had a better chance of winning if they had just punted on first down every time they got the ball to get their defense back on the field. The Bizarro Bama offense combined poor execution (my 70-year old mother has a more accurate arm than Zac Lee) with poor play-calling. Isn’t the definition of insanity doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result? Then what do you call a coordinator who calls the same off-tackle running play, 3 times every offensive series for an entire game when it didn’t work once?

- Last week, a local columnist here in Denver wrote an article arguing that Nebraska defensive lineman Ndamukong Suh deserves the Heisman. I thought it was just precious – like when a little girl asks for a Unicorn for Christmas. That changed on Saturday night, when Suh took over the Big Twelve title game. Really his only two mistakes were not lobbying to come in to play quarterback for Nebraska and rushing McCoy on that final play. If he hangs back, McCoy absolutely runs the clock out. The imminent Suh sack was the only reason McCoy threw the ball out of bounds when he did, saving the one second Texas needed to make it into the title game.

- The other Heisman trophy candidate who really stood out to me on Saturday was C.J. Spiller. If a Heisman candidate rushes for 230 yards and 4 touchdowns in a conference title game and no one sees it, did it actually happen? How mad is C.J. today that someone decided the schedule the ACC title game opposite the Big Twelve title game? He has a true statement game, and yet I am pretty sure no one outside the Atlanta/Clemson corridor watched more than a snap.

- I guess rather than complaining about all the deserving players that won’t win the Heisman (see: Suh, Ndamukong; Gerhart, Toby; Spiller, C.J., Ponder, Christian…ok, just testing to see if you are paying attention), we should congratulate Mark Ingram on being the first running back to win a Gino Torretta memorial ‘best player on the best team’ Heisman award this year. Groundbreaking indeed.

And only fitting that our Heisman trophy winner, much like our BCS Title game, was chosen more based on uniform than qualifications.