MARIOTA’S CASE FOR ‘GREATEST’
Mariota may be best college QB ever
DALLAS — When Marcus Mariota walks off the field at AT&T Stadium on Monday night, the Heisman winner could walk off with Oregon’s first-ever national title, and then walk away from the rest of his college career, having captured the two most coveted trophies in college football in less than a month.
But that incredible accomplishment would still not be nearly as remarkable or improbable as where he would then be placed — as perhaps the greatest college quarterback of all-time.
It feels crazy to write — and looks even more ridiculous to read— because it seems impossible that something so monumental could sneak up on us at the last second. But that is college, over so fast and only fully appreciated as it is ending, like the career of the soft-spoken superstar who never drew attention for anything other than sensational play, whose West Coast box scores made few newspapers and whose brilliant in-game highlights could never compete with sleep’s undefeated streak out East.
A label encompassing so much history triggers an initial reaction of doubt, but figuring out who claims college football’s top spot is far murkier than in professional sports because of the limited window of play and the lack of clarity involving a national champion for so many decades.
Still, the field can be cut pretty quickly.
First, if you don’t have a Heisman, you can’t be part of the conversation, so, sorry Sammy Baugh, John Elway, Vince Young, Steve Young and all but 32 quarterbacks in history. And if you don’t own a national championship ring, wait outside with Roger Staubach, Doug Flutie and Johnny Manziel and the rest.
A win over Ohio State would make Mariota the 11th quarterback to win both.
Unlike so many quarterbacks, Mariota has played since he was a redshirt freshman, starting every game of his career and throwing a touchdown pass in every game, while going 36- 4. He also is on pace for the lowest interception percentage in college football history, having thrown 13 interceptions on 1,130 attempts.
A dual threat defensive dilemma, Mariota’s rushed for more than 700 yards in each of his three seasons, adding 29 rushing touchdowns to 10,463 passing yards and 103 passing touchdowns, while completing nearly 67 percent of his career passes. This season’s magnum opus featured 55 total touchdowns and three interceptions, earning him the second-largest margin of victory ever in the Heisman voting.
With a victory Monday, Mariota will have won an unprecedented playoff, winning more must-win games than any quarterback ever and winning the two biggest games against the two greatest coaches of this generation — Nick Saban and UrbanMeyer— with each given more than a week to figure out how to slow his unstoppable show.
With a win, Mariota will have done it with more peoplewatching than ever before, with more people tweeting and scrutinizing, while playing with the pressure of putting a school atop the nation for the first time in its history.
He also will have accomplished it all in an era where quarterbacks command so much more responsibility than the many decades where the ground game dominated each game.
The biggest knock on Mariota’s pro prospects — being the product of Oregon’s up-tempo offense — also could apply to Tim Tebow, Matt Leinart, Danny Wuerffel and Tommie Frazier, other all-timers who never sniffed similar success as pros.
The Heisman-less Frazier won back-to-back national titles at Nebraska but was never a serious threat as a passer, completing less than half of his career passes and 48 less in his fouryear career than Mariota did this season, while Wuerffel threw as many interceptions in his Heisman-winning senior season as Mariota has in his career.
Leinart and Tebow remain the frontrunners, having won two national championships, but hanging chads remain in the ballots, with Leinart not even the best player on his own team and Tebow a backup/role player on the first Florida title team. Leinart and Tebow also didn’t finish on top, while Mariota still could supply the finest final memory.
“I really don’t care about legacies, so that’s opinions of others,” Mariota said. “It’s not something I really care about.”
But it’s something everyone else cares about, a way to validate why we watch as much as we watch, to be part of history, to have seen something or someone that has never been seen and may never be seen again.
When Mariota walks off the field after one more game, he could be part of the conversation— or, he could show why he isn’t.