Sports

College school status doesn't equal professional success

By Curtis Kalleward GVL Staff Writer
2/7/2010

As Bob Dylan once wrote, "The times, they are a-changing."

Once upon a time, the NFL determined the worth of its future stars based on where they went to school. A team's pre-draft analysis would begin by analyzing only the athletes from major NCAA football conferences as lesser-acclaimed schools were deemed inadequate for professional level talent.

According to pro-football-reference.com, the top 40 colleges to have ever had a former student play in a regular season NFL game are all from major conferences.

But lately, there has been a changing of the guard.

Randy Moss, Chad Pennington and Byron Leftwich immediately come to mind when thinking of small-time collegiate athletes who have enjoyed big-time success. All three starred at Marshall University. Quarterback Daunte Culpepper broke records at Central Florida University while running back Marshall Faulk earned his merits as a diminutive Aztec halfback at San Diego State University before terrorizing NFL defenses on Sundays.

Even Division II squads have had their own share of professional representation. Most recently, wideout Nate Washington caught passes at Tiffin University before helping the Pittsburgh Steelers win Super Bowl XLIII last season. Former Grand Valley State University cornerback Brandon Carr has started in all 32 games for the Kansas City Chiefs since the team drafted him in the fifth round two years ago. Carr is the twelfth Laker to play professionally.

There is something to be said for the level of competition that the ironically named "mid-major" conference schools bring to the field as well.

At the conclusion of the 2009 college football season, five teams finished the season undefeated. Three of them, the University of Cincinnati, Texas Christian University and Boise State University, are members of said conferences. Winners of mid-major conferences are not given automatic berths into Bowl Championship Series games, so these teams must practically go undefeated to garner any sort of national acclaim.

Boise State in particular is a fantastic story. The team has appeared in 10 bowl games over the past 12 seasons, including victories in both appearances in the Fiesta Bowl, one of the top four annual bowl games. No true college football fan will ever be able to forget the 2006 game when the Broncos defeated the heavily-favored University of Oklahoma Sooners, who felt that they deserved to be playing for the national championship instead of against a small school from Idaho. Boise State used a quick-fire series of trick plays and last-second heroics that resembled something out of The Little Giants.

The Super Bowl showcased several players, including Marques Colston, Darren Sharper, Austin Collie and Robert Mathis, who were not given the chance to play for a major school. The Indianapolis Colts brought seventeen of them to Miami, and the New Orleans Saints roster featured 10 more.

With the annual NFL draft weekend commencing on April 22 this year, my eyes will be on where Central Michigan University's superstar quarterback Dan LeFevour lands. A record setter whose stats rival the University of Florida's Tim Tebow, LeFevour has the ability and the intangibles to succeed in the NFL.

Someone just needs to look past where he went to college and take the chance on him first.

ckalleward@lanthorn.com

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