Might be a little biased, but I don't see what the big deal is about Brady Quinn, other than the fact that he led his team to 2 big victories, and bunch of little victories (including a late-season scare against Stanford), and 2 losses against more talented teams than his. Having not seen more than maybe 20 minutes of a single ND game at a time, I decided to go to YouTube.com to see him in action. My observations:
-I got 2 hits when I typed in the words "Brady Quinn Heisman", and neither of them were "Brady Quinn For Heisman" videos. Disappointing work there, ND fans!
-Their receivers made some absolutely fantastic catches last year. I'm not talking about 60 yard bombs, I'm talking tight-roping the sidelines/back of the end zone types. Shades of T.Glenn and C.Carter.
-A GREAT amount of the highlight clip-worthy plays were ones where protection broke down around Brady, insinuating that either ND's O-Line sucks or that Brady works best when a 280-pound animal is about to eat him.
My Conclusion:
-Brady is a great leader, ND's O-line needs some work, and ND's WRs need to be running for Heisman.
I feel the reason why their WRs made so many rediculous catches was becasue the ball was not thrown where it needed to be thrown. Perfect example: the most spectacular play that their team made last season was a play in which ND's O-line protection broke down a second and a half after the snap, Brady throws a prayer of a ball straight up into the air JUST as he's releasing the ball, and Samardzija (sp?) makes a diving one-armed catch at the 2-yard line, rolling over JUST before he hits the ground. Even the announcer says something to the effect that he thought Brady was throwing it away. Also makes you wonder why their WRs time-and-time again were having to make such insane catches.
I'm impressed with his leadership qualities and his ability to play big in games (like against USC last year), but I'm not convinced he's one of the best 3-5 players in the nation. I'd like to hear someone convince me otherwise.
