The 2003 Season In Review
Since the 2000 season, my final commentary of the season has been a Season In Review summation. For me, the dominant story of 2003 was the rise and fall of Oklahoma. Prior to the Big 12 championship game, I think most people thought Oklahoma was unbeatable. Some even claimed that they might be one of the greatest teams of all time. I wasn't quite to that point, but I thought if 1995's Nebraska Cornhuskers were the team of the 90s, the 2003 Sooners were making a strong case for team of this decade.
Fast forward a month, and Oklahoma experienced one of the greatest collapses in college football history. After getting undressed 35-7 in the Big 12 Championship game, the criticized workings of the BCS formula still left Oklahoma in the national title game -- in fact, they were still number one overall by a fairly comfortable margin. Many people, including myself, considered Oklahoma's failure in the conference championship to be just a blip on the radar for Oklahoma, a mental lapse that occurs for many great teams throughout history. Against an undynamic LSU team, I was among those predicting a fairly convincing win for Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl.
But LSU proved the one to be in complete control of the Big Game, despite a narrow 21-14 final margin.
The two game collapse reminded me a lot of 1998 - pick your team: Kansas State or UCLA. In 1998, the Wildcats rolled out big wins against Texas, Colorado, and (finally) Nebraska, and looked to be headed for a national championship. But 10-2 Texas A&M got in their way, stunning the Wildcats 36-33 in a hard-fought conference championship game. The Wildcats, thanks to their poor schedule and the availability of more financially-attractive schools, were then consigned to a minor bowl where they were beaten by a mediocre Purdue.
UCLA, you'll remember, was a surprise 10-0 in 1998 when they traveled to Miami to make up a game that had been postponed earlier in the year because of a threatening (real) hurricane. Had the game been cancelled, the world may have been spared Tennessee's 1998 national championship. Instead, in a game of unstoppable offenses, Miami outlasted UCLA 49-45 in a game that simultaneously exposed the Bruins porous defense and announced to the world that the news of Miami's death (i.e., 1995-1997) was premature. The Bruins were handled 38-31 in an explosive Rose Bowl against the Wisconsin Badgers.
In fact, 1998 was the season of collapses, for that was also the year that Arkansas lost 3 of its last 4 games - the first in the series memorably when they had the eventual national champions dead and buried until fourth quarter mistakes gave the Vols a new lease on life.
Oklahoma's collapse, though, remains a bit more unexpected. The best offense in America was held to 7 points by Kansas State and 14 by LSU. I suspect that Heisman Trophy winner Jason White injured his throwing hand in the Kansas State game and it never recovered - his throws in the last two games were very different from the confident throws of the regular season.
Other memorable stories of 2003 were the insignificance of Florida, Florida State, and Miami (though all had good seasons), the brilliant coaching of Nick Saban of LSU and Pete Carroll of USC, the BCS mess, and the silly firing of Frank Solich at Nebraska. For my personal interests, I will remember the 2003 Florida-Florida State game as one of the most exciting a frustrating of the series (a series which has had a lot of excitement and frustration), the incredible run of the Minnesota Golden Gophers, and the bowl triumph of Maryland and the bowl nightmare for Tennessee.
As I usually do, I'll hand out some superlatives.
Coach Of The Year: A very very close call, but I'll give the nod to Nick Saban. The way Saban's team played in its final two games was tremendous. The way he handled himself before and after the Sugar Bowl should be a model to other coaches, and probably was the tiny deciding factor for myself choosing Saban over the more silly Pete Carroll.
Player Of The Year: Derrick Strait, Oklahoma. I was a big proponent of Jason White as the Heisman Trophy winner, but it would be silly of me to ignore his last two games since I save my vote until the very end. There are several other players on the offensive side of the ball worthy of contention, but the most consistent players this year were on defense, and so I narrowed my choice down to Derrick Strait, Oklahoma's outstanding corner; Teddy Lehman, Oklahoma's brilliant linebacker; and Sean Taylor, Miami's unbelievable safety. Really, take your pick.
Quarterback Of The Year: Matt Leinart, USC. Again, looking across the whole season. I know Eli Manning and White got to go to NYC for the Heisman dinner, but this was an incredible year for quarterbacks. BJ Symons of Texas Tech threw for almost 6000 yards, Phillip Rivers for almost 5000, Ben Roethlisberger (Miami, OH), Ryan Dinwiddie (Boise St.), and Tommy Chang (Hawaii) all showed their incredible talents in their bowl games and throughout the season, but for my money, Matt Leinart was the most remarkable. Stepping into the shoes of a Heisman Trophy winner, Leinart led the Trojans where Carson Palmer could not - to a national championship. And Leinart, just a sophomore, grew up very quickly - performing as well as Palmer but doing so from the get-go (not after 3 and a half years of starting). Leinart's numbers: 255 of 402 (63.4%), 3556 yards, 38 TD, 9 INT. Leinart simply did not get the credit he deserved.
Running Back Of The Year: Darren Sproles, Kansas State. Chris Perry was the Downtown Athletic Club's invite, and Perry was awesome, but Sproles was better.
Receiver Of The Year: Lee Evans, Wisconsin. Okay, that's mostly just to be contrary. Yes, Larry Fitzgerald was great, but he was a bit overhyped. He played in the Big East, for goodness sake. Put Lee Evans in the Big East and you'd see the same numbers. Give Lee Evans a decent supporting cast at UW and you'd see the same sort of numbers. Wait, Lee Evans did have the same sort of numbers, just not as many catches. Evans: 1213 yards on 64 catches (19.0 yards per), 13 TD. Fitzgerald: 1672 yards on 92 catches (18.2 per), 22 TD. James Terry of Kansas State is another good choice.
Ranking The Conferences: Each season in review, I've ranked the conferences. This year it is pretty tough. With Florida and Tennessee down, is the SEC down? But LSU was so good. Was Georgia? Was Arkansas? How does one view the Big 12 in light of its championship? That they must be bad, if Oklahoma could so dominate the conference and look so bad in its last two games, or that they must be so good, because a healthy Kansas State turns out to be a world-beater too? And how does one view the amorphous Pac Ten? Here's my try:
- Big Ten
- ACC
- Big 12
- SEC
- Pac Ten
- Big East
- MAC
- WAC
- Mountain West
- Sun Belt
- Independents
The Picks Championship
It was sort of a weak year for the Picks Contest. We got off to a rocky start when several people's picks were lost by the geocities form server. This, coupled with an atypical expert panel apathy, resulted in just 4 experts picking every game this year. But the picks contest did have some interesting battles. Schmookie and the new h man had huge years after disappointing ones in 2003. Pony Boy continued his good performance, and Oz and heater14 hung close to the top again. But the story here was Kelly, who may very well have produced the best single season ever.
Her 72.5% performance was the third best winning percentage of all-time, behind Dan's 75% (1996) and John's 75% (1997). However, those percentages were earned over 171 and 224 picks respectively, whereas Kelly picked all 396 games this season. Furthermore, the expert panel was 2 and 7 respectively, whereas Kelly battled 15 human and 17 total full-season pickers. Finally, Kelly was much better than Consensus Curtis (69.9%), much better than the grand average (66.95%), and well ahead of her nearest human rival (Schmookie, 69.4%). This 3.1 point advantage is the best since the expert panel expanded beyond its two founders in 1997.
Furthermore, Kelly was the statistical leader in virtually every sense. She had the most weeks won (5) against no weeks lost, had a record upset IQ (61.22%), a record number of close scores (43), a record number of exact scores (4), and took home a handful of postseason awards. She is clearly the greatest expert of all time, and turned in arguably the greatest season of all time. And remember, rookies, she came in last in 1997, her rookie season!
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