I’ve written this in columns, and said it countless times, but here it’s going to be the lede because this message deserves its own stage: Marcus Mariota is, by far, the best player in college football.
He’s going to run away with the Heisman Trophy in New York in December. Oregon has a good team this year, but they’re the number three team in the country because they have a college football god at quarterback.
How’d this happen? How did an unheralded red-shirt three-star recruit out of the known signal-caller hotbed of Hawaii become the best player in the history of Oregon football?
How is it that Mariota – a prototypical quarterback if there ever was one at 6’4 and 210 pounds – idolized Jeremiah Masoli, didn’t start in high school until he was a senior, had only two scholarship offers, became the best NFL quarterback prospect of the decade?
The one other school that offered Mariota a scholarship was Memphis, and Oregon only discovered him because he attended a camp in Eugene between his junior and senior seasons when no one even knew how to pronounce his name.
We still don’t pronounce his name right, by the way. During his first start for the Ducks, three years ago against a Gus Malzahn-coached Arkansas State team, there was an effort to say Mario-TAH, before everyone gave in and resumed saying Mari-Ota.
During that camp at Oregon five years ago, new offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich took notice of Mariota – but the Ducks were already garnering a commitment from Johnny Manziel.
In the end, after a trip from Helfrich down to St. Louis High School in Hawaii to watch Mariota play, the Ducks offered him a scholarship and Manziel walked.
Thank god.
For Helfrich, Mariota and this 2014 season has been a blessing that could set up his entire coaching career. A coach taking over a successful team needs validation to prove that he belongs – and if Oregon makes the inaugural College Football Playoff, that will be just the validation Helfrich needs to mold his resume.
Oregon’s schedule is setting up very nicely for them right now. At #3 in the country, and with at least one of the two teams ahead of them destined to lose, the Ducks just have to win out to get into the playoff.
Oregon gets a buy this week to lick their wounds and recover from a costly win at Utah, and then has their two easiest conference games of the season, against woeful Colorado and perhaps even more pitiful Oregon State.
From there it’s onto the Pac-12 Championship game, which will, for all intents and purposes, be a playoff play-in.
Oregon should be healthy and raring to go by then, and whether this season ends how everyone in Eugene wants it to end or not, there should be no underestimating the feat that Mariota is pulling off this year.
This is, easily, the worst Oregon team that Mariota has quarterbacked. It’s a squad with underclassmen all over the offensive skill positions with older, better players having graduated to the NFL.
The Ducks are breaking in a new defensive coordinator with a unit that has been shaky all year, and injuries along the offensive line have wrecked havoc – Mariota has already been sacked five more times this year than he was in the entirety of either 2012 or 2013.
Mariota has a better quarterback rating this year than the last four quarterbacks to win the Heisman – Cam Newton, Robert Griffin III, Manziel, and Jameis Wintson – had in their winning years.
He’s sensational. He’s unflappable. He’s infuriatingly boring at times, which is impressive considering that’s an age-old sports feat that seemingly every college football player of consequence has forgotten the art of.
We’ve all heard about Mariota’s kindness and shyness, and the minute his best friend, center Hroniss Grasu went down with an apparent leg injury in the second half against Utah, I wondered what Mariota’s reaction would be.
Sure enough, Mariota stood consoling Grasu on the sideline when he came off the field. He was clearly shaken, but that did not effect his play, as Oregon closed the game out. He is a rock, not just because of his play but also his personality.
Talk about a saving grace in the transition from Chip Kelly to Helfrich – Mariota stuck around an extra year to grease the wheels.
And although, with his degree in hand, he’d be insane not leave Oregon at the end of this season, Mariota won’t say for sure that he’s declaring early for the NFL Draft when the Ducks’ season ends in January.
He’s an athletic savant. There is such a sturdiness about Mariota mentally and physically that a certain gravitas and presence is unavoidable, even if nothing Mariota has said at Oregon has done anything to enhance his image.
If Mariota had wound up at Memphis instead of Oregon, I’m just not convinced he wouldn’t have earned himself a trip to the Heisman ceremony this year anyway.
He’s just that good. I think Mariota will make a great NFL quarterback too – though entering the draft this year and being selected number one overall by the Oakland Raiders would be the ultimate test of a football player.
We saw greatness at Oregon with Chip Kelly. We knew that we were eyewitness to something special. Now Kelly is one of the most feared and recognized coaches in the NFL.
One of the most underrated perks of greatness is seeing brilliant people on top of their professions every day for as long as they’re here. That’s what we have now with Mariota.
So take a minute or two and appreciate that we’ve seen Marcus Mariota’s rise from up close. I know I just did.
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